Afghan Women. Images of war-torn Afghanistan 1978-2006. the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan’s banning of the burqa in 1978, fueled armed revolts in the countryside. Political unrest culminated in war with the Soviet Union, which lasted for nearly a decade and was followed by a civil war that led to the rise of the Taliban in 1996. The Taliban forbade women from working outside the home, going out in public without a male relative, going to school after the age of eight, and being treated by a male doctor. Taliban law also required women to be fully covered in public, allowed child marriage, and authorized corporal punishment such as whipping and stoning to be used against women.