‘I was a policewoman. Now I beg in the street’: life for Afghan women one year after the Taliban took power

An Afghan woman begs on a road in Kabul, Afghanistan, 11 April 2022. Photograph: EPA

One year ago, the Taliban swept through Afghanistan, taking control of the country amid the chaos of the US and UK troop withdrawal.

Now women’s lives across the country have been fundamentally changed, their rights curtailed and freedoms restricted. Campaigners have called the Taliban’s orders to deny women education, remove them from their jobs and force them back under the veil a “gender apartheid”.