Taliban replace ministry for women with ‘virtue’ authorities

By KATHY GANNON
Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers have set up a ministry for the “propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice” in the building that once housed the Women’s Affairs Ministry. They escorted out World Bank staffers Saturday as part of the forced move. It’s the latest troubling sign that the Taliban are restricting women’s rights as they settle into government, just a month since they overran the capital of Kabul. During their previous rule of Afghanistan in the 1990s, the Taliban had denied girls and women the right to education and barred them from public life. Separately, three explosions targeted Taliban vehicles in the eastern provincial capital of Jalalabad, killing three.