Rohullah Talaash

With a microphone and mobile phone in hand, Husna loved hitting the streets of Kabul every week to interview people for her YouTube videos. That excitement has turned to fear after the Taliban banned women from speaking in public.

The Taliban last month formally codified a host of morality laws in Afghanistan, which includes requirements for women to veil themselves from head to toe in public and a prohibition on speaking outside of their homes.

Her living room is a far cry from the bustling, brightly lit film sets she once loved, but Setaish Hayat says making YouTube videos at home is the next best thing in Afghanistan where Taliban edicts have increasingly confined women indoors.

Hayat, 21, was a budding actor in local film and television until the Taliban seized power in 2021 and began issuing decrees on women that included banning TV dramas with female actors and ordering women to wear strict hijab while presenting the news. 

Two years ago, Afghan farmer Ghulam Sakhi watched in despair as his wheat and corn plants withered under an unrelenting sun in the worst drought he had seen in his 70 years.

Today not only are his crops flourishing, but his fields boast aubergines, celery, onions and potatoes. He has planted 160 apple trees and his cows, sheep and goats graze nearby.

Cooped up at home, Pari Sediqi spends her days worrying how she will feed her sick husband and six children now that women are banned from carrying out aid work in Afghanistan.

Add to that Kabul's coldest winter in more than a decade, making warm clothes, fuel and food all the more crucial, and Sediqi is out of ideas about how to keep the family going.