‘They beat girls just for smiling’: life in Afghanistan one year after the Taliban’s return

Bibi Asya visits her uncle and aunt at their home in the village of Ismail Khel. Two of her family members were killed in the house by an airstrike before Bibi Asya was born. Photograph: Nanna Muus Steffensen/The Guardian

Maryam* is near the top of her sixth grade class in Kabul, which under Taliban rule means that her education should be ending in a few months.

But the 10-year-old, whose name we have changed to protect her identity, has a strategy to stay in school for another year, and her eyes dance with satisfaction as she explains her plan. “I will make sure I don’t answer too many questions right. I have decided to fail, so I can study sixth grade again.”