MY LIFE WITH TALIBAN WOMEN

IT is a barbaric regime where women are flogged if they show an ankle, where their nails are removed if they are painted - and where the punishment for adultery is death.

Charity worker Alison Kelly lived with the women under Afghanistan's Taliban and witnessed the astonishing cruelty and repression that the regime's men inflict on them.

Alison, 43, has spent six years as head of Christian Aid's Middle East team. She saw how Afghanistan was transformed by the Islamic fundamentalist sect which took power in 1996. Women are forced to wear the chadri or burqa shroud that covers their bodies. Education and work are banned.

But Alison found the women showed a brave defiance.

Here is her story of her time in the country.

ALISON KELLY first journeyed to Afghanistan in November 1999 and was shocked by what she encountered.

The Taliban - the religious fanatics governing the country - are the world's most brutal regime, especially to women.

Alison says: "When I went to Afghanistan I thought I knew what to expect. After all, I'd been travelling in Muslim countries for years as an aid worker.

"I knew that if I'd been living in Afghanistan instead of just visiting as a worker from London, I would not have been allowed to have a job.

"Worse, I wouldn't have been permitted to leave the house without being covered head to foot in blue robing - and even then only if my husband or brother allowed it."

Alison was amazed by what she found. Women in Afghanistan may not wear make-up or show their faces in public. High heels are banned because the Taliban says the clicking sound they make could corrupt men.

The veil they are forced to wear only allows women to see through a fabric screen. It is so stifling that those wearing glasses or suffering asthma complain they cannot see or breathe.

Alison says women find the burqa a heavy burden. "Occasionally you can see them down side streets lifting it up to take in air in the hot weather."

Doctors report a big rise in eye ailments and road accidents because women's vision is so restricted.

Despite the oppressive rules, Alison says women try to maintain as normal and dignified lives as possible.

She says: "Those who can afford it wear western clothes and make-up underneath their veils.

"Like the local women, I had to cover up. But because I was a foreign aid worker, I could wear a loose scarf over my head and a long tunic and trousers."

Alison discovered that the majority of ordinary Afghan citizens are poor and starving. She says: "I was shocked to see just how bad the conditions are, especially for the women.

"The educated and more wealthy people left years ago. Most still there are on the verge of starvation - the country had suffered a three-year drought, the worst in living memory.

Villagers were worried about getting food for their children. Many were down to their last few weeks of food.

"Wells had dried up, not just in the villages but even in Herat, the second largest city. It was a real problem - women have to walk a mile or more to get water, but the restrictions don't allow them to go this far without their husbands."

Alison is convinced that many Afghans are so removed from the world that they may not even be aware of the name of America's most famous city.

She says: "Many would never have heard of New York, let alone the World Trade Center. The Taliban have banned television and most villagers can't afford radios."

Alison, who has a five-year-old son, says most women living under the Taliban feel trapped and isolated.

She says: "They feel imprisoned. Young women in particular are very curious about what our houses are like and what young people do in the Western world.

"But how do you explain to someone who has no experience of a motor vehicle what the London Underground system is like?"

Under the Taliban, women have no right to work or education and cannot travel alone.

Alison says: "I recall one girl, about 20, who had been a refugee in Iran where she had an education until she was about 12.

"She could do beautiful embroidery but that was all she was allowed to do in Afghanistan. She was very frustrated at not being able to go to school."

Afgan homes must have their windows painted out so that women cannot be seen from outside. Alison says: "As a woman I didn't meet with the Taliban, although you could see them on the street. It's easy to tell which ones they are because they wear a particular style of turban.

"And you know all the soldiers are Taliban because only the Taliban are allowed in their forces. But in any case, I didn't spend much time out on the streets.

"Women just don't go out, unless they are in large group.

"Those who do venture into the street have to be home before 9pm. That's the curfew time for everyone. The electricity normally goes out an hour later."

Alison, from Bradninch, Devon, is married to a university lecturer. Her husband was extremely worried about her trip to Afghanistan but understood her need to help.

Part of Alison's job is to help train women in basic skills."We train birth attendants, who are like midwives, because it's so hard to get to hospital - one village I visited was 13 hours away from one. But most women acting at a birth are completely untrained - I heard of one who used the sole of her shoe to cut the umbilical cord. Infant mortality is desperately high.

"When it was just women together, they would lift the veils away from their faces and talk openly to me.

"They told me about their work. Outside the cities, women grow vegetables in their gardens - they're not allowed out into the fields.

"Under other circumstances, in a different place, these women might have gone to university or have studied a trade. Under the Taliban the only professional work open to them is in the few health centres."

Some women have risked their lives to set up underground groups to give young girls an education.

Alison says: "In some of the bigger cities they have set up secret schools in their homes." The Revolutionary Afghanistan Women's Association (RAWA) is particularly courageous in its opposition to the Taliban.

It runs clandestine schools and orphanages for girls and provides family planning advice.

But it must stay a jump ahead of raids and beatings by Taliban "Vice and Virtue" squads who patrol the streets to check if anyone is breaking the rules.

Alison says many women long to flee the regime. "The women I met had incredible spirit and humour.

"In the towns women who used to be professionals - bankers or professors - are frustrated that they are shut up in their homes.

"Out of sight of the men, they open up and talk. For a moment, you could think you were talking to a group of women back home.

"Then you remember that their children have swollen bellies from lack of food."