Ignoring the Taliban won’t end their reign of terror

The Taliban have always had a strange misogynist world view, weirdly preoccupied by sex. The first time they were in power in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, the governor of the western province Herat banned women from walking or talking in the street outside his office, in case he was distracted by footsteps ‘or hearing the sound of their laughter’. The Taliban attempted to control every aspect of life. But it has taken until now, three years into their second period of power, for them to impose the full set of restrictions they imposed then. 

The last three years have been bad enough, particularly for women and girls, banned from education and employment, and encircled by dozens of rules. The UN recently said that the country has been living in a ‘climate of fear and intimidation’. Both men and women have been publicly stoned to death in public for ‘adultery,’ and flogged for lesser offences.