New Wardrobe Brings Freedom to Women in Swat

When the Taliban took control here in February and forced women into burqas, an epidemic of clumsiness swept this city. Women began banging into lamp posts. Nurses fumbled needles. Many simply stopped going out altogether.

Now the Taliban are mostly gone, driven out by a military operation this summer, and the women of this northern Pakistani city, the largest in the Swat Valley, are returning to public life. Teachers are back at work, maids are commuting to jobs across town and nurses are giving injections without having to squint through a coarse layer of netting. [NY Times] Read more [via Talk Islam]