Hiding no more

Afghanistan | Kabul's former mayor—and other Afghan women—unveil their agenda for the post-Taliban era | Priya Abraham

If there is any sign things are changing for Afghan women, women's rights advocate Roshan Sirran need only look at the maid who cleans her Kabul office. She is illiterate, but comes in to work after listening to the radio wanting to discuss the day's current events. That desire, Ms. Sirran says, is part of a larger movement of Afghan women to be "like women around the world."

Ms. Sirran has watched the highs and lows in women's freedoms in Afghanistan for decades. In 1980, she became deputy mayor of Kabul for eight years. When the Taliban came to power in 1996, she and millions of other women were forced to stay home and wear the head-to-toe covering, the burqa. Even when she was mayor, she said, she was still battling cultural mores limiting women.