The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, has spoken of the “advancing erasure” of women from public life under a new look Taliban regime. Twenty-three out of Afghanistan’s 40 million people are in need of food assistance, he said in a recent statement. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, or UNAMA as it is known, pointed out in a July report that seven hundred people have been killed and a little over 1400 wounded in the country since the Taliban takeover in August last year. At least 160 instances of extra-judicial killings have been reported of former government and security officials and more than 120 media workers have faced arbitrary arrest or detention. Eighty per cent of all women journalists have been fired from their jobs. All secondary schools remain closed for girls.