A year in, the Taliban escalates its war against girls' education in Afghanistan

BAMIAN, Afghanistan — When Zahra Wafa thinks about what it took to put her daughters through school, her face hardens.

She remembers the days she and her husband ate only bread to afford their children's education, how it had all seemed worth it to give them a chance at a future beyond Nawa Foladi, a village in central Afghanistan with a single dirt track, hand-pumped wells and no electricity.

Then Wafa remembers the new reality under the Taliban, and her voice falters at the thought that it might all have been for nothing.

"We worked hard, spent so much money on this and they're so intelligent. And now they're supposed to just sit at home?" she said. "Every time I think about it I get a headache."

A year after the precipitous fall of the U.S.-backed republic and the Islamic militants' ascension to power, Wafa and her daughters, like so many women and girls across Afghanistan, are grappling with the Taliban's hard-line