‘Our Identity Has Been Hijacked’

When the Taliban first imposed its vision for Afghanistan’s cultural and political landscape between 1996 and 2001, the country’s women were subjected to wide-ranging forms of gender-based hardships. In addition to policies—like mandatory burqas, education bans, and forced isolation— designed to expel 50 percent of the population from the public eye and positions of power, Afghan women suffered rampant sexual assault, the very thing the former decrees ostensibly protected against. 

With the fall of Kabul and the Taliban’s formation of an all-male “interim” government, the jihadist group’s treatment of women...