Khadija Hashemi, 21, an Afghan female artist, stands next to her painting during the first ever woman's art exhibition at Amani school in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2008.

Twenty-three young women artists have displayed 93 of their paintings in the country's first ever women's art exhibit - a landmark event because just seven years ago, these women would have been beaten or jailed for daring such to organize such a show, and their art would have been torn to pieces by the Taliban.

Under the hardline Taliban regime, women were forbidden from leaving home without a male relative as an escort, while figurative art was banned and even destroyed.

(AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)