Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me for

Harna Hever and today we go back to 2003 when the first safe house for women was opened in Kabul, Afghanistan.

A country that has been labeled one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman.

In the aftermath of the fall of the Taliban, women who had been trapped for years by oppressive laws and traditions were able to help one another escape from domestic abuse and violence.

After the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, escape from domestic abuse and violence.

After the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001

and the defeat of the Taliban,

some of the restrictions against Afghan women

began to be lifted. Kabul has fallen to the Northern Alliance.

Crowds cheered as Taliban troops fled the city.

The scenes are amazing.

I'm surrounded by crowds of people celebrating the removal of the Taliban government from the

Afghan capital Kabul. Like many of Afghans, Mary Akrami had fled Afghanistan to live with family in neighboring Pakistan

when the country was under the rule of the Taliban whose brutal regime included

the harsh treatment of women, banning them from public places, forcing them to dress in all

enveloping burqas and forbidding girls from going to school.

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