In this photograph taken on March 11 in a scene from a television drama, Afghan actress Leena Alam who plays Shereen, (right) walks as her screen husband Abdul Quddos Farahmand grabs her while she buys a few things from street vendors in Kabul. — AFP

KABUL — In a grimy Kabul street, the director gives the order to roll the cameras, and filming starts on a remarkable new TV drama that boldly challenges taboos about women in conservative Afghanistan.



Shereen, the star, enters the scene and buys a few things from street vendors when suddenly her husband, a possessive and brutal man, grabs her.



But tough, no-nonsense Shereen won't back down and a row ensues.



"Shereen's Law", due to be aired on Afghan TV before the end of the year, tells the story of a 36-year-old woman who brings up three children on her own while forging a career as a clerk at a court in Kabul.



Such a character is already shocking in an overwhelmingly patriarchal society where most women are confined to lives of menial domesticity.



But the show deliberately ramps up the impact. Shereen fights corruption, harassment, and rape, and tries to divorce her husband, whom she wed in a forced marriage.



More than 13 years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan remains deeply wedded to traditional customs and its airwaves have never hosted anything like this before.



"It is the first such drama — that is about women, that is about empowering women, that is about the struggles of women in Afghanistan," Leena Alam, the Afghan actress who plays Shereen, told AFP. — AFP