Food handouts and employment are increasingly tied to Afghan families’ agreement to strict Islamic education
When the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Nahid, 24, was midway through an economics degree. She had hoped to work in a university after she graduated.
Instead, Nahid now spends her mornings at a religious school in the basement of a mosque in the western city of Herat, sitting on the floor and reciting scripture with 50 other women and girls, all dressed in black from head to toe.
