‘I am very afraid’: Women on the front lines of a new Afghanistan

Reporter Mellissa Fung reflects on what’s at stake for women under Taliban rule.

This was not the story we set out to tell. We had been investigating the killings of women in Afghanistan since the United States signed a peace deal with the Taliban in February 2020. Such killings have been rising, with record numbers documented by the United Nations: 219 women killed in the first six months of this year, compared with 138 during the same period in 2020.