Through Khaled Hosseini's novel, The Kite Runner, the reader observes many injustices committed due to the presence of the Taliban and the cultural conflict in Afghanistan. One of the most concerning issues in Afghanistan is the abuse and inequality that women face on a daily basis due to Taliban mandates. In Afghanistan, women are treated as inferior to men and are unable to defend themselves due to the laws enforced by the Taliban. Hosseini uses Amir and Hassan's wives, Soraya and Farzana, to represent the injustices that Afghan women are subjected to. Before the rise of the Taliban in the early 1990s, Afghan women were mostly treated equally and with respect. Although women were still expected to be submissive to their husbands, the mother of a family played a key role in family decisions such as who a son should marry (“Society and Norms”). The “Taliban regime has cruelly reduced women and girls to poverty, deteriorated their health and deprived them of their right to education” (“The Taliban's War on Women”). Due to the oppressive presence of the Taliban, women are considered inferior to men. In The Kite Runner, Soraya, Amir's wife, is still under her father's authority, even though the family is no longer in Afghanistan. Although Soraya's position is due in part to traditional Afghan culture, it may also represent how the values ​​and beliefs of the Taliban have infiltrated in one form or another into the daily lives of the Afghan people (Hosseini). In The Kite Runner, Hassan's briefly mentioned wife, Farzana, was beaten as Hassan watched helplessly as she spoke to a man in the market square (Hosseini). Women were not to speak loudly or inappropriately, and no woman was to leave the house unless escorted by...... middle of paper...... a group. In both of his novels, Hosseini has both protagonists and antagonists from Afghanistan. It describes the flaws in the generalizations that many people believe due to a lack of information or knowledge about the concerning situations occurring in Afghanistan. As awareness of the indecencies occurring in Afghanistan increases, we hope that more people will take action to help those who are oppressed and help resolve the unrest caused by the presence of the Taliban. Works Cited Hosseini, Khaled. The kite runner. New York: Penguin Group, 2003. Print.- - -. A thousand splendid suns. New York: Penguin Group, 2007. Print. “Society and gender role norms: women. » Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Np, and Web. May 25, 2014, “The Taliban’s war against women.” US Department of State. Np, November 17, 2001.Web. May 25 2014.