Afghan women’s long and hard struggle for the right to divorce

Afghan women talk with a Taliban fighter while they hold placards during a demonstration demanding better rights for women in front of the former Ministry of Women's Affairs in Kabul [File: Bulent Kilic/AFP]

After years of abuse at the hands of her husband, 32-year-old Bano gathered the courage last year to file for divorce in northeastern Afghanistan.

“For four years, he beat me every day and raped me every night,” she told Al Jazeera, requesting that her name be changed because she is in hiding from her abuser. “If I resisted, he would beat me more.”