In conservative Kandahar, new gym creates safe space for Afghan women

Afghan women exercise in a fitness gym in Kandahar, Afghanistan September 16, 2020. REUTERS/Ismail Sameem

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - In Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar, rights activist Maryam Durani has found a fresh outlet for her decades of advocacy - a new fitness centre for women.

Durani, 36, is a fierce campaigner for women's rights in the conservative stronghold where the Islamist Taliban militant group have major sway and take a conservative stance on the position of women, who mostly wear the burqa in public.