And you say that these forced abductions and marriages follow a pattern. And sometimes, it's to be forcibly married to a member of the Taliban. Sometimes, it's to prison for alleged, you know, violations of the morality code. GROSS: One of the things that you learn is that women and girls are disappearing.
And we're really scared now more than we ever were because there are no checks and balances on these people. And actually, so many women we spoke to said exactly that to us, said nobody cares about Afghanistan anymore because of Ukraine. And the difference - speaking to officials, the difference in their behavior, the speed at which they were enforcing more restrictive laws against women were all very visible. We noticed an absolute shift because the world's eyes were not looking at Afghanistan they were on Ukraine. And of course, what happened was the Ukraine war, the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So I first went to Afghanistan in November, December after the takeover for 30 days, and I went back in March this year. NAVAI: You're absolutely right about everybody losing interest. Is that part of the reason why you made the documentary, because so many of us have stopped paying as much attention as we had been paying and have moved on to other crises? And things have gotten so dire for women there. I feel like the world isn't watching this carefully anymore, and your documentary was a wake-up call to me that I haven't been paying attention to Afghanistan. GROSS: You know, you said the Taliban knew the world was watching. And, of course, it didn't take very long for the world to realize that they weren't as reform-minded as they were making out. And it's interesting, isn't it, that the very first press conference, they mentioned women's rights because they knew that the world was watching, is watching, and that women's rights for the world is a litmus test of their governance and how they approach human rights. They said that women would be allowed to work and study. They said they'd protect women's rights within the limits of Islamic law. RAMITA NAVAI: Well, it was interesting because actually, it was their very first official press conference after they took power that they kind of made a song and dance about women's rights. What are the promises they made and broke? It seems like the promises that the Taliban made a year ago about how they treat women have been broken. Ramita Navai, welcome to FRESH AIR, and congratulations on the documentary. Her first book was titled "City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death, And The Search For Truth In Tehran." She's been the reporter in documentaries about rape in India and U.N. She won an Emmy for her PBS "Frontline" documentary "Syria Undercover." She risked her life to make that one. Navai is a British Iranian investigative journalist, documentary filmmaker and author.
MISERY STREET PBS SERIES
The film will be shown on the PBS "Frontline" series next Tuesday, Aug. Navai also interviews a couple of Taliban officers asking them about their treatment of women. In the new documentary "Afghanistan Undercover," my guest, Ramita Navai, sometimes with the help of a hidden camera, manages to talk to women in jail, women hiding in safe houses as well as women's rights lawyers and activists risking their lives to help other women and to protest the Taliban.
MISERY STREET PBS CODE
Women and girls have been disappearing in prison for breaking the Taliban's morality code or forced into marrying one of the Taliban. Girls aren't allowed to go to school after sixth grade. With a few exceptions, they're no longer allowed to work. When out in the street, women are expected to be covered from head to toe with only an opening for their eyes. Over the course of the year, the Taliban have intensified their crackdown on women's rights to the point that women have been erased from public life. This month marks the one-year anniversary of the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan and the departure of U.S.
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