Afghan women shed their burqas

Showing their faces in public for the first time in years

A group of women in the Afghan capital, Kabul, have thrown off their burqas to demand respect for women's rights after the fall of the Taleban.

You have been imprisoned in your own homes, you have been beaten, you have been deprived of work and forced to beg, but you stood firm and you should be called heroes

Soraya Parlika

The women, including politicians, academics and activists, were among the first to show their faces in public in the capital since the Taleban took Kabul in 1996.

Organiser Soraya Parlika said the first priority was for women to return to work.

The Taleban denied women education and the right to work, and banned them from leaving their homes without covering themselves from head to toe in the burqa.

Meanwhile, the UN's food agency said women had resumed working for its office in Kabul.

'Heroic women'

At Tuesday's protest in Kabul, the members of the newly-formed Union of Women in Afghanistan lifted their heavy veils or wore light headscarves in their place.

Women are demanding the right to work

"You are the heroic women of Kabul," Soraya Parlika, a former communist and secretary general of the Red Crescent told them.

"You have been imprisoned in your own homes, you have been beaten, you have been deprived of work and forced to beg, but you stood firm and you should be called heroes.

"Now it's time to fight for your rights."

After the Northern Alliance took Kabul last week, a woman's voice has been heard on the radio, and a woman has presented broadcasts on the city's only television station.

Girls are also going to school, many for the first time in their lives.

Now activists are hoping that a new constitution guaranteeing equal rights for women will be drawn up ahead of the creation of a broad-based coalition.