By: Ziba Balkhi
Nabila stares at a photo of her family. Eight months have passed since the last time she hugged her mother in Bamyan. A sense of despair seems to weigh on her.
She is in Mazar-e-Sharif and graduated from Balkh University in April. But Nabila, 24, has been unable to return home since the Taliban introduced restrictions on women travelling without a male escort.
“Being away from your family and not seeing them for eight months is very difficult, even if you are in the same country,” she said while touching her mother’s face in the photo.
Nabila has requested a pseudonym and that we do not to name her university college for fear of repercussions for doing this interview.
“I graduated from university (in April). When I wanted to return to Bamyan, I couldn’t because of the lack of Mahram (male escort) and now I don’t know what to do,” Nabila said.
Four months and 11 days after taking control of Kabul, the Taliban banned women from traveling alone in distances more than 72 kilometers. Even in cities, the Taliban warned taxi drivers not to pick up women without a hijab or a male companion.
Nabila said that her brothers are very young and her father cannot travel to Balkh because of the work season and because of cost. She said that her parents are very poor. “My father cannot leave and come for me yet,” she said.
The distance and the high cost of travel is preventing Nabila’s family from sending any of their relatives. It is not possible to travel directly between Balkh and Bamyan. They must travel to Kabul first and the long journey is too expensive for her family to pay.
Women’s travel restrictions have been met with widespread reactions. In its latest report, Amnesty International said that the Taliban has deprived women from freedom of movement.
Nabila said that she has seen friends turned back from their journeys because they did not have a male escort with them.
“Four of my friends wanted to go home to their provinces when they finished their studies last semester,” she said. “One of them went easily because her brother was here and studying law, but the three of them were turned away by the Taliban again on the Kabul-Mazar highway because they did not have any male member of their families.”
Fear of the Taliban means Nabila has not dared to try and make the journey herself. She is waiting for the work season in Bamyan to end so her father can make time to get her home.
Women, especially students, are facing increasingly difficult hurdles in being able to travel, even for necessary trips.
In a Rukhshana Media report published June 21, many female university students said that due to the Taliban’s restrictions on women they have been unable to visit our families. And taxi drivers said that the Taliban has beaten drivers who allow a woman to enter their car alone. This is consistent with the actions of the Taliban when they were in government from 1996-2001. In that time, the group also strictly enforced a ban on women traveling without a male escort.
