Roya* speaks softly, in impeccable English that she says she learned by listening to American pop music, something she would never admit in front of her mother. The Instagram video call cuts out for a moment. The sisters need a VPN, a virtual private network, to access social media, as local operators restrict traffic from apps like Instagram and Facebook. The image returns. From a tidy room in Kabul province, the 23-year-old recalls what she calls “the worst day of my life.”
Read more The perfect tourism
It has been five years since the Taliban regained control of the country, just days after US troops withdrew following two decades of military presence. Then-president Ashraf Ghani fled to the United Arab Emirates, and the Taliban entered government buildings without anyone opposing them. According to BBC estimates, within just ten days they controlled almost the entire country.
Also read
Roya had not yet been born when the Taliban first ruled, but her parents had lived through it, and this time they did not hesitate. They packed what little they could into a couple of bags and headed to the airport. They never made it. The Taliban already controlled the only access road and only allowed foreigners to pass. Roya later recalls seeing videos on Instagram of the overcrowded runway, civilians clinging to the fuselage of planes. “You could see some falling during takeoff because it was so full,” she remembers. Her mother hoped to escape to Pakistan, where some of her cousins had fled in 1996, the first time the Taliban took Kabul.
For Roya, the worst part is the boredom. She washes clothes and sweeps to fill the day. “When you want to get out of a depression pit, you do things that bring you joy, but my country no longer lets me do any of that.” Before the Taliban, she played football on a women’s team. Today, parks and gyms are off-limits to any Afghan woman. A red uniform with her name on the back still hangs on her bedroom door, a tribute to the women’s national team, now in exile, which she has not been able to throw away. Suddenly her voice breaks and she starts to cry. Between sobs, she explains that she tries to stay strong for her family, “although sometimes,” she says, “the emptiness overwhelms me when I think about everything I have lost.”
They stole my education and my adolescence”
Gulalai, 19 years old
Kabul Province
Her younger sister, Gulalai*, then takes the floor, without letting go of Roya’s hand. Unlike the older sister, who was able to finish high school shortly before the Taliban arrived, Gulalai has not set foot in a classroom since she was 14. “They stole my education and my adolescence,” she sighs. Forced to spend her days locked in her room, she started listening to Radio Begum, a station run by Afghan women from Kabul. It broadcasts a school curriculum for girls aged 12 to 18, in Pashto and Dari, and has managed to stay almost outside Taliban control, except for some occasional setbacks.
Read more Welcome to the ‘readaways’: a journey through your favorite novels
Gulalai enthusiastically followed geography and history classes, and today listens to one of the psychology programs, designed to help young Afghan women take care of their mental health. While listening to the program, she always takes the opportunity to put on makeup. Over the years she has gathered a small collection of cosmetics and admits she always wears “lipstick or pink gloss” under the veil that covers her face, although since June the Taliban have banned wearing makeup and perfume in public, another tightening of the rules.
Since 2021, the Taliban have banned wearing makeup and perfume, and listening to music in public
On the few times they go out, the sisters say they barely encounter other women. The Taliban patrol armed with American M4 rifles, the same ones Washington once supplied to equip the Afghan army and police. When they meet with friends, it is usually in venues with sex-segregated spaces, divided from top to bottom by partitions. “It’s humiliating, a total injustice,” says Roya, still with red eyes.
One in seven Afghan women report having “poor” or “very poor” mental health
Since that suffocating turn in 2021, the mental health of many Afghan women has deteriorated. A UN Women report reveals that seven out of ten have “poor” or “very poor” mental health, and suicide rates are also rising. Added to this is a fierce economic crisis, worsened since the Taliban banned women from working in public administration, beauty salons, as journalists, and in NGOs. For Afghan women, sewing is one of the few trades allowed under the fundamentalist regime.
More than 2.4 million young Afghan women have been deprived of secondary education, and UN Women has recorded more than 100 decrees approved against women and girls. These fundamentalist measures have institutionalized discrimination and deepened what the organization considers “the worst women’s rights crisis in the world.” While Kabul wakes today, adorned with flags and murals praising Islamic laws, ready to celebrate the five years since the Taliban’s return to power, most women remain at home.
Read more The neighbors of Palma organize dinners in squares to ‘evict’ tourists
*All names have been changed for security reasons
