Introduction

In Afghanistan, high schools are currently closed to girls, and women have been banned from TV dramas. So how hard is life for the female half of the population, as the Taliban reassert control?

Tamasin Ford hears from her colleague Yalda Hakim, who recently returned to the Afghan capital Kabul, the city of her birth, where she quizzed members of the new regime about their intentions for girls' education. Tamasin also speaks to Mahbouba Seraj of the Afghan Women Skills Development Center in Kabul about what life is now like in the city.

Meanwhile Marianne O’Grady, who worked in Afghanistan for the charity CARE International until she was evacuated in August, says that with food now running desperately short in the country, there are even more pressing concerns than the treatment of women.

(Picture: Afghan girls look out next to a building in Sharan, Afghanistan; Credit: Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)