‘Her face was beaten in’: how Taliban rule ushered in a new era of women being killed

A clear patternThe Taliban does not collect any data on how many Afghan women are killed each year. Seven out of 10 victims – 165 of 231 – were housewives with no independent income or institutional standing to pursue a domestic violence case. Photograph: Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty ImagesEven before the Taliban, Afghan women were experiencing gender-based violence nearly three times higher than the global average. Since the Taliban took power, the existing scant protections for women facing violence have been stripped away. What the numbers don’t showOur reporters could not interview most of the families of the women killed.