By Kartos
Marziya* has defied the odds for most of her life.
Married off as a teenager to a man she didn’t know, attending class with a new baby in her arms, abused by her husband’s family, becoming the breadwinner while birthing and raising six children, joining the Afghan police force, and working in the elite unit. She knows what it means to face challenges.
But these days the 37-year-old says she is overcome with despair.
“We’re in a situation where we don’t even know where to get our next meal,” she says.
“I’ve been unemployed for more than two years. I occasionally go to people’s houses and wash their clothes for 100 to 200 afghanis ($1.30-$2.60) to prepare a loaf of bread for my children.”
The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in August 2021 did not only abruptly stop Marziya’s work as a police special unit officer and her ability to earn an income. It has also devastated her plans for her family.
“The fall of the republic transformed our lives. It was a sudden downfall that crushed all hopes and dreams – mine and my children’s alike,” she says.
The idea that the end of the war between the US and the Taliban brought security to Afghanistan has not been Marziya’s experience.
“I loved my [police] duty despite all its hardships. My children were going to school with enthusiasm. My eldest daughter had just been accepted at university,” she says.
Ensuring her four daughters and two sons receive a solid education has been a key focus.
“I have endured tough and bitter times, but I never allowed my children to be deprived of education. My husband’s family is illiterate. I have struggled excessively with this situation. It’s made me terribly sad,” she says.
“There were times when I would work all day, and then cry all night until morning about what to do with them [her husband’s family].”
A forced marriage couldn’t deter the student
Marziya was still at school when her father had her engaged to a man 10 years older than her.
It was 2004, a time when most of Afghanistan was experiencing a brief period of relative peace. The Taliban regime had been ousted three years earlier and had not built up to the attacks it would later unleash. Many girls Marziya’s age were returning to school after the Taliban’s rule in the 90s that deprived them of education.
At 16, Marziya was excited for the opportunities education offered her. But one day when she got home from school, before she shared the news about her day with her mother, her mother told her instead about her engagement.
It had been decided in her absence.
Marziya still chokes up when she talks about it. She says her father and her husband’s father were friends. Her husband’s family came to ask for her hand in marriage through vows and the Quran.
Her father, without her consent, accepted the proposal.
“And four months after the engagement, I got married,” she says.
In almost an instant, Marziya went from aspiring schoolgirl to a married woman. According to cultural customs, she went to live with her husband’s family where her education was considered “immoral” and she was expected keep house instead.
“My husband’s family was never happy with me studying to the extent that they would beat me and even pulling my hair so I wouldn’t go to school, but I didn’t give in,” she says.
“They would say, ‘If you go to school, you’re immoral. You’re not a good woman. Now that you have a husband and children, you should be like a good woman at home, taking care of your children and serving your husband.’ But I would say, ‘No matter how much you accuse me, I will still go to school. I will still study my lessons’.”
Not even pregnancy would deter her.
“I would go to school and sit in class holding my baby. No one supported me. They wouldn’t even give me proper food. There was even a day I didn’t eat bread. I didn’t have milk to give to my child.”
The unlikely path to the police
Marziya ultimately graduated from the Ali Ahmad Shahid school in Charikar city of Parwan province.
She says that after finishing school, she continued her studies at a health institute to specialise. But her husband’s family’s opposition eventually wore her down to the point that she left halfway through.
Years later, Marziya says her husband’s father apologized to her, and has done so multiple times since, for his abuse. But she says the emotional wounds within her have never healed.
After leaving the health institute, Marziya turned to a shorter, practical course – tailoring. She received the training in a program run through international NGO Acted and was hired as a tailor at the Innovative Women’s Initiative Center in Parwan province’s Women’s Affairs Department of Parwan Province.
It was there that the decision to join the police was born.
After a few months in this department, at the recommendation of the head of women’s affairs at the time, Marziya decided to join the police force.
Marziya’s employment contract at the Innovative Women’s Initiative Center in Parwan Province. Image: Supplied.
After completing a course at the Parwan Province training center, she was assigned to be a guard at the provincial Korean Hospital in 2013.
She says working at the hospital was very tough and controversial. She had no fixed hours. Most of the patients in the hospital were military personnel, making it a riskier posting than others.
But she was satisfied with her job because she could have financial independence.
After four years, she rose to the rank of sergeant and soon after joined the special police unit. There she served until the Taliban took control of the country.
Marziya alongside her colleagues in the special police unit of the former government. Image: Supplied.
The swift collapse of a country – and a life
“We had very tough days. We would go to remote and highly dangerous places and carry out operations. We endured a lot of hardship.
“But in the end, it amounted to nothing,” Marziya says.
When Parwan province fell to the Taliban, Marziya was on duty.
“It was around 8am in the morning. I left home to go to my duty post. As I reached the side of the road, I could hear gunfire coming from the training center and the city center,” she says.
“I called my commander. He told me not to go to duty because it was an emergency situation. ‘Hurry, take your children and go to Kabul’, he said.”
Following her commander’s advice, she returned home, gathered her essential belongings, took her children and husband, and they left for Kabul.
Terrified but determined, she arrived with her family in Kabul at 2am. By then, they’d received the news that Parwan had fallen to the Taliban.
But just hours later, the same fate would fall on Kabul as the Taliban reached the outskirts of the city. There was no where else to run. The president fled the country, the government collapsed, and Kabul fell that very day.
After the Taliban seized control of the country, they dismantled piece by piece all the infrastructure supporting women and their very rights. Like many women, Marziya was not permitted to work regardless of her standing as the sole source of income for a family of eight.
There were also fears of retribution. Despite the Taliban’s promise of general amnesty, Taliban members engaged in killing, torture and detention of the former Afghan National Security Forces, including women.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), in a report published in August last year, found hundreds of cases of Taliban vengeance against former Afghan government security personnel have been documented.
Her eldest daughter had just started university. Her eldest son was in his final year of school. He began to work to help provide for the family’s needs. However, the simply work he did with a wheelbarrow was not sustainable for the family, earning him only 100 to 150 afghanis a day.
So he decided to go alone to find work in Iran.
Using the overland routes, Marziya’s son set out to cross the border illegally. However, Marzieh says on the way he was abducted and tortured by human traffickers to force his family to send money.
Marziya had no money to send. But finally with the help of her brothers, she managed to free her son by paying 20 million tomans (US$500). Her son’s ordeal lasted five days.
Now he works in a tailoring workshop in Iran’s capital Tehran, but the income is not enough to support his family back in Kabul.
One day at a time
Marziya has been unemployed for over two years. Her husband’s heart problem means he cannot work. Their living situation is deteriorating day by day.
She herself has fallen into depression, and the only advice the psychiatrist had was to recommend she distance herself from the news and try to reduce her stress.
“I fear life and not having anything to eat on the one hand, and I fear the unknown future of my children, especially my four daughters, on the other hand,” Marziya says.
“Life has become very bitter for me.”
Note*: Names have been changed due to security reasons.
