Veiled Courage: Inside the Afghan Women's Resistance - In Afghanistan under Taliban rule, women were forbidden to work or go to school, they could not leave their homes without a male chaperone, and they could not be seen without a head-to-toe covering called the burqa. A woman’s slightest infractions were met with brutal public beatings. That is why it is both appropriate and incredible that the sole effective civil resistance to Taliban rule was made by women. Veiled Courage reveals the remarkable bravery and spirit of the women of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), whose daring clandestine activities defied the forces of the Taliban and earned the world’s fierce admiration.

The Women of Afghanistan Under the Taliban by Rosemarie Skaine - Even though the people of Afghanistan have in general suffered under the rule of the Taliban, women live especially difficult lives, enduring terrible hardships. They are denied basic human rights, forced to wear veils and kept in seclusion. This work addresses the religion, revolution, and national identity of Afghan women and places them within their gender-political and religious-political roles, thus elevating our understanding of their abuse, imprisonment and murder, and offering a basis for their rehabilitation. Powerful and moving interviews with Afghan women conducted and translated by the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan are presented and a brief history of the struggle of the Afghan women and an overview of the conflict between the Afghans and the Taliban are included.

Unveiled: Voices of Women in Afghanistan by Harriet Logan - "We have been forgotten, and we need the right to speak. If no one hears what we say, nothing will change." In 1997, during the Taliban's repressive rule, award-winning photographer Harriet Logan went to Afghanistan and encountered a group of extraordinary women whose strong characters and dreams for the future made an indelible impression on her. Despite the peril to her life and theirs, she captured their lives in a series of striking photographs. The women risked their safety by speaking to and being photographed by her because they felt that the outside world needed to know what was happening to them. The images of women from 1997 contrast sharply with those from the 1970s, when they were free to dress as they wished, speak up for their rights, and pursue their educations alongside men. After the Taliban's defeat at the end of 2001, Logan returned to Afghanistan, where she found many of these women again and met others. These courageous and intelligent women shared with her stories of unimaginable sadness and abiding strength through the long years of war and uncertainty. Zargoona, a widow, reveals that she could not afford to treat her cancer because Taliban law prevented women from earning a living. Nahed, a schoolteacher, has vowed never to marry because even her own brothers beat her, Durkhanai, the daughter of a famous television anchor-woman, tells how she experienced the joys of family life and the pain of lost freedom all at once: "We were like birds in a cage. For me, maybe my cage was good -- my home was full of happiness. We love each other here and we are not hungry. But outside it was terrible." Nine-year-old Sanam rejoices that she can carry her doll without being beaten for idolatry. Latifa lost her foot when she stepped on a mine and subsequently left her house only four times during Taliban rule. She begs of women across the world: "Please help us Afghan women. We have just come out of a dark period into the sunshine. Learn from us so that what we have suffered will never happen again." Logan's photographs reveal the world of these women, from portraits of them at home to the war-torn landscapes of Kabul and its marketplaces newly brimming with beauty products. This stunning journey in text and image will open the reader's eyes to the Afghanistan of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

The complete subordination of women was one of the first acts of the Taliban. But the women of RAWA refused to cower. They used the burqa to their advantage, secretly photographing Taliban beatings and executions, and posting the gruesome pictures on their multi-language website, rawa.org, which is read around the world. They organized to educate girls and women in underground schools and to run small businesses in the border towns of Pakistan that allowed widows to support their families.

If caught, any RAWA activist would have faced sure death. Yet they persisted.

With the overthrow of the Taliban now a reality, RAWA faces a new challenge: defeating the powers of Islamic fundamentalism of which the Taliban are only one face and helping build a society in which women are guaranteed full human rights.

Cheryl Benard, an American sociologist and an important advisor to RAWA, uses her inside access to write the first behind-the-scenes story of RAWA and its remarkably brave women. Veiled Courage will change the way Americans think of Afghanistan, casting its people and its future in a new, more hopeful light