The plight of women in Afghanistan has rarely been out of the media spotlight since the Taliban arrived back in Kabul after taking most towns and cities in their country with little or no resistance in August. Some of the reports in the West, though, have been woefully misleading; most have painted a picture of gloom and doom.
Commentators have lamented the future prospects of women and girls for those “left behind” as though the entire female population wanted to leave Afghanistan. Even now, anti-Taliban propaganda fills social media, with numerous anonymous and false accounts being set up amid acts of unprecedented censorship by the network companies.