Afghanistan may be one of the worst places for women in the world. The Taliban have been imposing restrictions on women in the past seven months. Most working women have not been allowed to return to work, women have been banned from traveling long distances alone, and the Taliban are imposing hijab of them.
The Taliban have crushed women protests in Kabul and elsewhere in the country.
Two protesters were shot dead in Herat when they took to the streets in the early weeks of Taliban rule. Female protesters have been detained and tortured by the Taliban in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif.
Several women spoke with Rukhshana Media to share their experiences under the Taliban rule.
Nargis was just three years old when the Taliban regime was ousted in 2001. She doesn’t remember anything about the Taliban in the 1990s. She went to school and university after the Taliban were gone, and then worked as a teacher and an aid worker in Ghazni province.
But everything changed after the Taliban came to power. Now she has to stay home because she lost her job.
“We have lost our spirits, and we get depressed at home,” she said. “It is a great insult to her humanity when a woman cannot leave her home alone.”
Nargis planned to continue her post-graduate studies. But she has lost her interest in education because of an uncertain future for women.
“I don’t have the motivation to continue my education now,” she said. “Our fate is unknown.”
Maryam, 24, hasn’t lost her job. She is still teaching at a private school in Ghazni. But she doesn’t feel secure when she leaves home for work.
“When I get out of home for teaching,” she said. “I don’t feel safe until I return home.”
Zahra, 24, was a beauty salon owner in Ghazni before the Taliban took control of the city. But she lost her income and job the day Taliban captured Ghazni city. She worked in the beauty salon to make enough money to pursue her higher education. But she may not be able to achieve that goal.
“All my previous plans are shattered and I have no motivation anymore,” she said.
Fatima had busy days before the Taliban. She studied at a private university, and also taught at a private school. She is the only one who has done undergraduate studies in her family of nine.
“It was one of my childhood dreams that one day women would be able to study without any social, cultural or political barriers,” she said. “But now my little sisters cannot study.”
Khadija Amiri, 28, has a bachelor’s degree in economics and computer science. She is the only breadwinner of a family of seven. Before the Taliban, she worked in a foreign organization. But she has no job now.
“I don’t dare to leave the house alone and go out with my friends like before,” she said. “The Taliban have somehow built a prison for women inside their houses. I feel like I am imprisoned at home.”
She had received an offer letter from an Indian university to continue her post-graduate studies. But Indian government canceled the scholarship program after Taliban took power.
“I am now in a state of uncertainty with an uncertain future,” Amiri added.
Zahra, 23, a journalist who has lost her job, said “severe anxiety, depression and lack of motivation are the things that unfortunately came into my life after the Taliban came.”
Maryam, 27, who has done her postgraduates in education management in Iran, said she last lost hope about the future.
“After 18 years of studying, I have to stay at home and cook,” she complained. “It’s the biggest torture I am tolerating after the Taliban takeover.”
