Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Afghan women have gained the rights to vote, work, and pursue an education. They're running for president, they've claimed seats in parliament, and they've even competed in the Olympics. But international troops are due to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, and the Taliban threatens to step into the vacuum they'll leave behind. Already, writes Amie Ferris-Rotman in an FP dispatch from Kabul, many of the women who've come so far -- journalists, politicians, and rights workers, among others -- have begun to retreat from public life out of fear for their safety. "Once the Americans go we'll have to sit at home again, bored," First Lieutenant Zakiya Mohammadi tells Ferris-Rotman.
The "last decade produced a league of knowledgeable, determined young women for whom the Taliban's return is anathema," Ferris-Rotman writes. Here's a look at women across post-Taliban Afghanistan -- from the campaign trail to the basketball court to the operating room.
Above, Afghan girls practice Taekwondo moves during a martial arts class in Herat in January 2013.
Mauricio Lima/AFP/Getty Images
