Our latest stories from New York, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Kashmir
Plus: Celebrating Sana Atef, the IWMF's Courage in Journalism Awardee
Thanks for joining us for another edition of More to Her Story’s weekly newsletter, where we bring you fresh reporting and voices from our global newsroom and podcast centering women and girls worldwide.
This week, we bring you incisive stories by MTHS editor-in-chief Sarah Little, a reporter from Afghanistan on behalf of MTHS and Rukhshana Media, Kashmiri journalist Quratulain Rehbar, and more.
For New York’s Models, The Fashion Workers Act is Long Overdue
By Sarah Little
After more than a decade of advocacy, New York has taken a landmark step to protect fashion models from exploitation. The Fashion Workers Act, championed by former model Sara Ziff and her organization, the Model Alliance, grants models basic labor protections for the first time: safeguards against harassment, contract transparency, and legal recognition as workers.
In another life, I modeled in New York. Though I never stayed in the infamous “model apartments,” many of my friends did: cramped spaces with bunk beds, where agencies charged thousands in rent each month under a vague catchall of “debt.” I remember young models arriving from Eastern Europe, unable to speak English, handed contracts they couldn’t read, and pressured to sign without anyone to advocate for them. And, of course, you hear the stories: models told to strip naked in casting rooms; models pushed to work through exhaustion and unsafe conditions; models sent explicit photos by photographers; models assaulted on set and even by their own agents, then expected to keep quiet.
The Fashion Workers Act marks the start of a necessary industry-wide reckoning, seeking to uproot the structures that have long allowed exploitation to thrive in a world powered primarily by young women.
Under the new law, model management companies in New York are required to register with the state and meet basic labor standards. The Act requires them to provide clear contracts, deal memos, and full transparency around fees. It also ends the use of sweeping power of attorney clauses, long used to control a model’s earnings and image. Models are now entitled to copies of every contract signed on their behalf, can report abuse through formal channels, and are protected from the unauthorized use of their digital likeness, requiring informed consent and ownership over AI-generated replicas. For an industry that prizes youth and disposability, this is no small shift.
“For far too long, fashion workers — especially models — have operated in a legal gray zone where abuse, wage theft, and coercion have been normalized,” Sara Ziff, founder of the Model Alliance, told More to Her Story. “Due to the multi-level structure of hiring through model management companies, models were largely excluded from protections for independent contractors and protections for employees. Under the Fashion Workers Act, models finally have labor rights and protections regardless of employment status.”
In Afghanistan, Women Face Electric Shock Punishment for Defying Hijab Rules
By Rukhshana Media and MTHS
As the Taliban tightens its grip on the lives of women and girls in Afghanistan, the cost of even minor defiance continues to grow. According to victims and eyewitnesses who spoke to Rukhshana Media and More to Her Story, Taliban forces are using electric shocks as punishment for women accused of violating strict hijab rules — mandates that, since 2022, have required full body coverings and face veils in public.
Some women report being knocked unconscious while resisting arrest by the Taliban’s morality police, a force overseen by the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Others say the same devices are being used inside women’s prisons to instill fear and maintain control behind closed doors.
Nafisa*, 20, was shopping for winter scarves with her sister in Kabul last October when the pair were confronted by four uniformed Taliban morality police. One demanded to know why Nafisa wasn’t dressed like her sister, who wore black clothing from head to toe with a face covering. The authorities then ordered Nafisa to get into their vehicle. Terrified, she gripped her sister’s hand tightly and tried to stand her ground as a woman working with the police pulled her away.
“When I resisted, they gave me an electric shock. After that, I remember nothing,” recalled Nafisa, who said she was held overnight in a cold, dark police cell with eight other women and three girls.
One woman told More to Her Story and Rukhshana Media she had been beaten and detained for being improperly dressed, even though she said she was wearing full-length clothing. Several others said they were arrested for begging on the street, which is not against the law in Afghanistan.
Nafisa's older sister Zohal*, 24, stammered nervously as she remembered that day. “Nafisa fell to the ground right before my eyes and the Taliban treated her like a corpse, throwing her into the vehicle and driving away,” she said. “It was the worst moment of my life, and those seconds felt like hours. I kept asking people for help, but they walked away. No one dared to say a word to the Taliban.”
Both women said they were left feeling traumatised by the incident, and both subsequently took antidepressants for a period of several months.
In March, the rights group Amnesty International called for a global ban on direct-contact electric shock devices, describing them as “inherently abusive” and warning they can cause serious injury and death. International policing standards state that electric shocks should only be used as a last resort and in self-defence — a standard that, according to Afghan women and girls, is now being repeatedly broken.
Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, the hardline group’s stringent rules over women’s dress and mobility has been increasingly brutal, several women told More to Her Story and Rukhshana Media. Enforcement initially included mass arrests, first in an area of western Kabul dominated by the Hazara ethnic minority, and then grew to other parts of the country, according to research by the United Nations. Some women were released after a few hours, but others remained in custody for days or even weeks, the study found. Their release was often made contingent on male relatives promising to police the dress of their women relatives in the future.
Decades of Violence Leave Deep Mental Scars on Women in Kashmir
By Quratulain Rehbar
SOPORE, India — Eight years ago, in the spring of 2017, Taiyuba was a college student in chemistry lab when she heard loud shouting followed by the clatter of footsteps echoing through the corridor of her college in Kashmir.
When she went into the hallway with classmates, she saw a young man running from a protest, blood streaming down his face, soaking his uniform. There had been tear gas shelling near the college and the air was filled with smoke.
Taiyuba, who is using her first name to protect her privacy, had struggled with asthma since childhood and felt her chest tighten. She couldn’t breathe. She was overtaken by sudden, violent wheezing. Her friends and teachers rushed her to the hospital.
“It felt like the end of my life,” she told More to Her Story.
The Kashmir conflict, rooted in the 1947 partition of British India, is a decades-long dispute between India and Pakistan, with both countries claiming the region. It has sparked wars and insurgency in one of the most militarized zones in the world. In Kashmir, civilians have endured curfews, crackdowns and communication blackouts — deepening their trauma and alienation.
In 2017, a student uprising swept through Kashmir. It began in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district, where armed forces raided a government college and assaulted students, leaving 54 students injured. Following that incident, a storm of violent student protests engulfed the valley, with women also taking part. One viral photo showed women students throwing stones at Indian security forces, who responded with tear gas shells
According to researchers, Kashmir has one of the highest incidences of PTSD and other mental health disorders in South Asia due to long-term exposure to violence, trauma and uncertainty. But there are many people who don’t get access to mental health support.
In Srinagar, Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital, known as SMHS Hospital, houses the main psychiatric facility for area residents but it mostly treats people with drug addictions.
Médecins Sans Frontières, a nonprofit, has been providing services to area residents since 2001, but is deployed to only four districts: Shopian, Pulwama, Tral and Srinagar. “Years of conflict in Jammu and Kashmir have taken a toll on people’s mental health in the state,” the organization says.
In 2015, Médecins Sans Frontières, the Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, based in Srinagar, and the University of Kashmir conducted a survey of 5,519 residents and found that 45 percent of adults showed symptoms of mental distress. About 41 percent had probable depression; 26 percent had probable anxiety; and 19 percent had probable PTSD, according to their final report.
In their findings, published in a peer-reviewed journal, researchers found the three disorders were associated with being female, over 55 years of age, having no formal education, living in a rural area and being widowed, divorced or separated.
Another study, published in 2016 by the Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences and ActionAid, a nonprofit based in South Africa with branches in India, estimated that 11.3 percent of the population in Kashmir had a mental health disorder, higher than the national prevalence of about seven percent.
A recent 2024 study found that nearly 13 percent of women have mental health disorders, compared to 8.4 percent of men. Researchers found that only 12.6 percent of patients suffering from mental disorders had sought treatment for their illnesses.
Last month, after Pakistani militants crossed the border into Kashmir, killing 26 Indian tourists, Taiyuba was gripped by a familiar anxiety, even though she was far away, pursuing a master’s degree in Jalandhar, India. Repeated calls from her worried mother reminded her of the weight of being a Kashmiri away from home. The killings triggered a fresh wave of harassment and threats against Kashmiri students across India.
“I stayed back on campus while others returned home, but my family was in constant worry — and I was anxious for them,” Taiyuba told More to Her Story.
“That’s the life of a Kashmiri,” she said. “Just when you start to believe the world might be yours — to rebuild, to dream — something happens. One incident, and it all comes crashing down. Because this fear, this pain, it’s not new. It’s deep-rooted. And it never really leaves.”
Inside Nigeria’s Illegal Domestic Servitude Epidemic
By Usman Bello Balarabe
KANO STATE, Nigeria — When Amina Ado was sent from her rural village in Wudil, Kano State, to work as a housemaid for a family in Lagos, following the death of her family, she was just 9 years old. She quickly became an orphan entrusted to an employment agent, who served as a link between the girl’s family and wealthy families seeking laborers.
For almost five years, Ado told More to Her Story she endured beatings, starvation, and sexual abuse. “I learned how to move through the house like a shadow,” she said.
No matter how small Ado tried to make myself, the family’s son made multiple advances at her, “especially during the nights when he [came] to my room.”
The first time it happened, she was scrubbing the family’s bathroom floor, her knees raw against the tiles. He cornered her, and his hands groped under her faded dress.
“I was scared, and I froze. My voice [was] trapped in my throat like a stone, knowing that I [could] not do anything but cry, because who will ever believe my complaint as a poor housemaid?” she said. “I thought I would die there.”
Ado made several attempts to escape during her employment. But with each attempt, punishment followed: locked in a dark room entire days, starved, and intimidated into compliance.
“But [in a third attempt], I waited until midnight, climbed through a bathroom window, and ran barefoot into the streets without knowing anywhere to go. And that is when someone, a northerner who works as a security guard in the neighborhood, saw me and helped me go back to Kano,” she explained.
Recovering in her hometown, Ado’s brother reported her employer to the police. But instead of offering help, “they said there was nothing they could do, since [the abuse] happened in Lagos, not Kano. One of the officers even advised us to drop the case and move on with our lives, warning that pursuing it would cost a lot of money; money we simply don’t have.”
Like Ado, thousands of girls across Nigeria — some as young as 10 — remain trapped in domestic servitude, often enduring abuse with little hope for justice.
More from MTHS: Celebrating Sana Atef
Afghan journalist Sana Atef, a reporter for Zan Times, has been recognized by the International Women's Media Foundation with the 2025 Courage in Journalism Award.
Through our ongoing editorial partnership with Zan Times, Sana Atef wrote an incisive feature on the Taliban's oppressive mahram restrictions. Sana, who operates under a pseudonym in Afghanistan, collected first-hand accounts of women and girls who described how the newly expanded policy has transformed their daily lives into “a minefield of fear, humiliation, and forced dependency.”
Learn more about the incredible women who have been recognized by IWMF for the 2025 Courage in Journalism Award here.
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