Afghan fathers, brothers and husbands are under pressure to ensure the women in their families observe the country’s repressive laws. Here, men and women across the country explain how it is affecting family bonds
To be a father of daughters in the Taliban’s Afghanistan has become a daily nightmare for Amir. Now, he says, he is more prison guard than loving parent, an unwilling and unpaid enforcer of a system of gender apartheid that he despises yet feels compelled to inflict on his two teenage girls in order to protect them from the Taliban’s rage and reprisals.
Just a few years ago, Amir’s daughters had a life and a future. They went to school, to see friends and moved around their community. Now, he says he would prefer it if his daughters never left the house. He, like many other fathers in Afghanistan, has heard stories about what can happen to young women who find themselves in the crosshairs of the Taliban’s “morality police”.
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