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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Catherine Bennett

Visit Afghanistan, land of culture, cricket and women closeted in their own homes

A woman in a burqa walks through a market in Kabul.
A sexual stimulus too far? The Afghan authorities are banning windows from which places used by women are visible. Photograph: Rodrigo Abd/AP

Having denied Afghan women jobs, education and free movement, ordered them to be totally covered, banned them from parks, removed their critical healthcare and silenced them with a ban on audible speech, the Taliban have plainly reached the point where the joy of torturing half the population has to be balanced, like any sensible exercise in mass persecution, with the needs and enjoyment of the male and free.

What, for example, to do about windows? Doubly enraging to the ruling obsessives, in that they offer female slaves the pleasure of daylight as well as allowing non-residents occasional evidence of their existence, these openings do, on the other hand, benefit the women’s male owners and their sons.

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