A RAWA member talking with village women. It is since many days that Mohammad's wife has nothing to prepare for family meals except bread and weak unsweetened tea. "I can't remember the last time anyone had new clothes in the family", she says. Unemployment for men, the traditional family breadwinners, is universal. Despite such dire circumstances the Taliban authorities must have their pound of flesh - corvée labour, administrative and religious taxes ("alms") and arbitrary fines are ruthlessly imposed and collected.