How can you live without hope? In Afghanistan, for women and girls, the question is not theoretical.

As International Women’s Day approaches, the UN acknowledges that there has been a backlash against women’s rights around the world, but nowhere is it more serious than in Afghanistan.

Women and girls have been prevented from attending secondary schools and universities. They have been banned from almost all employment, from parks, gyms, public baths and beauty salons.

This time last year, the Taliban announced it would resume stoning women to death for adultery.

In September women were banned from being heard speaking outside of their homes. In December, they were banned from training as midwives and nurses at further education colleges, the last permitted form of education available to them.

Afghanistan has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the world. Men may not treat women without a male guardian present, so the ban on female midwives will inevitably lead to more women and babies dying.

Read more Rebecca McQuillan

The true horror of what has unfolded in Afghanistan chills the blood. Women and girls are existing as ghosts of their former selves. A sense of anguished helplessness pervades international coverage of Afghan women’s plight, following the chaotic US withdrawal from the country. That wiped out overnight all the hopes, dreams and ambitions of Afghanistan’s female population and catapulted them back to hell. The Taliban have progressively deepened females’ persecution, heedless of international opinion.........

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