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An Afghan woman holding her child walks along a street on the outskirts of Faizabad district, Badakhshan province on Sept. 3, 2024. (Omer Abrar / AFP via Getty Images)

By Rebecca Hulst and Michelle Onello | Afghanistan has plummeted to last in global rankings of gender equity and women’s security since the withdrawal of international forces in 2021. A second Taliban regime has issued increasingly harsh decrees entrapping millions of women and girls in a system of repression that violates their basic human rights, segregates them from broader society and keeps opportunities and independence out of reach.

But even as the situation for Afghan women grows more dire, the international community is inching closer to recognizing the Taliban as the legitimate leaders in Afghanistan, leaving Afghan women with diminishing hopes that their oppression will end.

(This article originally appears in the Fall 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)

(Click here to read more) 

U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten at a presidential campaign rally for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus, Mich., on Aug. 7, 2024. (Adam J. Dewey / Anadolu via Getty Images)

By Livia Follet | If there had been a 15-week abortion ban in place at the time that U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.) was 14 weeks pregnant, she would have never been given the freedom, space and time to make the choice not to have an abortion.

“It made me recognize how incredibly grateful I was that I was able to make those choices free from government interference, free from the overreach of people who just wanted to score political points, and how I was free to make the best decision for me and my family, which in my case was to choose not to have an abortion and to give our daughter every chance at life that we possibly could,” Scholten told Ms. 

(Click here to read more)

Left: Montrell Carmouche. Right: Operation Girls (Instagram).

By Eleanor J. Bader | Operation Restoration (OR) is working to change this for women and girls in the Pelican State. The group was founded in 2016 by formerly incarcerated women to provide peer and social service support, referrals, and counseling to women caught up in the criminal justice system. A related project, Operation Girls (OG), was founded in late 2018 to help female-identified children between the ages of 10 and 17 who have at least one parent in prison.

"Women and girls are typically left out of discussions about incarceration—there is a tremendous lack of resources for young girls living in marginalized communities, generally, and for girls dealing with incarceration, specifically,” says Montrell Carmouche, who oversees Operation Restoration’s social service programs.

(Click here to read more) 

Tune in for a new episode of Ms. magazine's podcast, On the Issues with Michele Goodwin on

Apple Podcasts + Spotify.

In this episode, we’re joined by two co-hosts of the Webby Award-winning #SistersInLaw podcast to discuss where our nation stands as we approach the 2024 elections—from the ongoing trials faced by former president Donald Trump, to Nikki Haley, to the Supreme Court’s recent opinions and so much more.

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