After Afghan quake, many male rescuers aided only men, avoided women

“They gathered us in one corner and forgot about us,” she said. No one offered the women help, asked what they needed, or even approached them. Afghan cultural norms, enforced even in emergencies by the ruling Taliban, forbid physical contact between men and women who are not family members. In the village of Andarluckak, in Kunar province, the emergency team hurriedly carried out wounded men and children and treated their wounds, said Aysha, 19. But she and other women and adolescent girls, some of them bleeding, were pushed aside, she...