Afghan Chastity Checks

If Human Rights Watch is correct--and there's no reason to believe they're not--kicking out the Taliban hasn't necessarily done much to improve the status of women in Afghanistan.

As Reuters reports,

Many Afghan women are still subject to the same abuse as under the ousted Taliban and in some regions, such as the west of the country, face increasing harassment, a human rights group said on Tuesday.

Human Rights Watch, in a 52-page report, singled out warlord Ismail Khan in the city of Herat, instrumental in helping the United States topple the Taliban, for bundling women back into the all-enveloping burka and forcing them to undergo "chastity checks."

The HRW report is available online here.