her escape from Taliban was also filmed in an Indian movie. On 12 July 2021, a woman in Faryab Province was beaten to death by Taliban militants and her house was set alight because she would not cook for a group of their fighters. In August 2021, Afghan police reported that Taliban extremists had killed an Afghan woman in Balkh Province for wearing tight clothing and not being accompanied by a male relative. The Taliban denied the accusation and said they were investigating the incident. Many punishments were carried out by individual militias without the sanction of Taliban authorities, as it was against official Taliban policy to punish women in the street. A more official line was the punishment of men for instances of female misconduct: a reflection of a patriarchal society and the belief that men are duty bound to control women. Maulvi Kalamadin stated in 1997, "Since we cannot directly punish women, we try to use taxi drivers and shopkeepers as a means to pressure them" to conform. Examples of punishment of men include: If a taxi driver picked up a woman with her face uncovered or unaccompanied by a mahram, then he faced a jail sentence, and the husband would be punished. If a woman was caught washing clothes in a river then she would be escorted home by Islamic authorities where her husband/mahram would be severely punished. If a tailor was found taking female measurements, the tailor would face imprisonment. International response The protests of international agencies carried little weight with Taliban authorities, who gave precedence to their interpretation of Islamic law and did not feel bound by UN codes or human rights laws. After the Taliban takeover of Herat in 1995, the UN had hoped the gender policies would become more 'moderate' "as it matured from a popular uprising into a responsible government with linkages to the donor community". The Taliban refused to bow to international pressure and reacted calmly to aid suspensions. In November 1995, UNICEF suspended all aid to education in regions under Taliban control, as they argued the ban on mixing males and females in education was a breach of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In the aftermath of the 1995 Beijing Women's Conference, this action moved to solidify UNICEF's role as a leading agency in matters concerning women and children. In 1996, Save the Children (UK) also withdrew