Ending America’s forever war: What next for Afghan women?

This story is the first of a series we are publishing of first-hand accounts on what life is like for women in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. We show what they have lost and what they will continue to lose with the Taliban in power.

When Kabul fell to the Taliban in the middle of August, ending America’s longest-ever war, the rest of the world watched with horror and disbelief. One question was on almost everyone’s mind: What will happen to Afghan women?

Improving the plight of Afghan women and girls was a central part of the US-led campaign, and the past 20 years oversaw hard-won gains: Women filled university hallways and office desks, travelled freely across the country and further afield and joined nearly every aspect of public life.

They became policewomen, judges and Olympians. By 2019, there was a larger percentage of women in Afghanistan’s parliament than the US Congress.

Most of this progress vanished during the last weeks of tumult. The Taliban say its new government is “inclusive,” but there are no women and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs has been disbanded.

Schools are already being shuttered across the country and women ordered home from their places of work.

In collaboration with Rukhshana Media, an Afghan newsroom led by women, we are publishing a series of first-hand accounts on what life is like for women in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Through these dispatches, we are centring the voices of ordinary Afghan women who are not making the headlines.

We will show what these women have lost and what they will continue to lose with the Taliban in power.

We hope that through this joint project, we will create a conversation around the difficulties and hardships these women endure in their everyday lives, and learn what they have in common with each other. It is vital the world hears the quotidian narratives of Afghan women at this crucial time in their history.

Nargis Omar: Being imprisoned at home is what awaits me

It was 9 am. All members of my family were around for breakfast. Suddenly, my father’s phone rang. The person on the line told him, “We’re visiting you this afternoon for the proposal ceremony.”

My father, his throat dry, responded: “The guest is always beloved by God. You are welcome.”

The person calling my father was a relative who had joined the Taliban. He’s ten years older than me, with a wife and two children. Now, he wants to force me to marry him as his second wife. My hands are tied; I am helpless. He is a Talib and I am a woman. Apparently, there is no way to say no. If I can’t escape, I have to accept this marriage.

I am a woman who worked hard and managed to provide a decent life for herself and her family, a decent life based on Afghan standards. But with the Taliban returning, just like 25 years ago, we lost everything. My relatives were against girls’ education. But my father was different from them. My father, who is a hero in my life, supported me in receiving an education.

I was the happiest when I was going to school. I wanted to get educated and become someone so that I could build my Afghanistan. After high school graduation, I took the Kankor exam (university entrance exam) and was accepted to my favourite field, agriculture.

Religious field

However, this was not acceptable to my relatives. According to them, if a woman is to study, it should only be in a religious field and in a female-only environment, away from the eyes of men. Living as a woman in such a misogynist atmosphere was torture. However, I did not give up and insisted on my decision to continue my studies in agriculture.

Despite getting annoyed by the continuous mocking and sarcasm of people around me, I wasn’t willing to give up my goals and dream for the sake of others because I was the one who had struggled a lot to get to university. I would often say to myself, “I shouldn’t give in like a weak person. I should believe in myself.”

I vowed to study and work in the same field. I wanted to prove to my relatives that a woman can do far more significant things than housekeeping and childcare. On the other hand, I would soften the path for other girls in my relatives and neighbours to study in fields other than religious studies.  

During my studies, I was banned from going to school several times due to the pressure and intervention of my relatives. However, my father stood by me in continuing my education. Although I studied in the field of my choice, my family was still quite conservative and discriminative towards women working outside. But I was sick of compromising and accepting other people’s decisions about my life and desires. It was time for me to flourish.

I was in the third year of university when I learned of a job opportunity near my house. Without consulting anyone, I applied for it and took the required entry exam. As usual, I got a high score and got selected. When I discussed the matter with my father, he objected. However, with the mediation of my teachers, he finally agreed to let me work.

From the day I got my permission to work outside, I was determined to help fellow women achieve their dreams. One of the first things I did was to write several letters to local media managers. I volunteered to run a program for them that reflected women’s problems. Through it, I was able to solve several women’s issues and put a smile on their faces.

About a year ago, I started working as an agricultural engineer with an NGO in one of the western provinces of Afghanistan. As a part of my job requirements, I travelled to the districts and villages to teach women how to process and distribute their new agricultural products to the market. For instance, I trained village women to make pastes from tomatoes and sell them. I worked so enthusiastically that I wouldn’t feel exhausted even after hours of traveling and training the women.

Child marriage

My daily routine started like this: I would wake up at 5am and after my morning prayer, I would study for an hour, have breakfast and then head to the office. I would travel to a different village every day. After conducting the training, I would sit down with women, hear their stories, and note the problems they faced in that village. At the end of working day, I would go to the media and discuss the problems I had noted.

I focused on the problems that were solvable. For example, in one case, I helped a woman who was a victim of forced child marriage to find a job and divorce her husband who was violent.

Every night, before going to bed, I would review my points of strengths and weaknesses. I must admit that pen and paper have been the means of relieving my pain during these years.

After a few months, my relatives found out about my activities. They tried to dissuade me from working, first with a softer tone and later with threats. They pressured my father to get me married like other girls in our community and keep me busy with housekeeping and raising children. But my father resisted. Our relatives were firmly against my work outside the home.

Because I had refuted all their absurd beliefs, and apparently, I had hurt their religious and traditional values/feelings. I had become a successful woman who pursued her goals steadily and did not pay attention to their misogynist demands.

20 years

However, before I could achieve my goals, Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, and my relatives joined the Taliban and their ideology. For other Afghan women and me, this fall was not just the fall of a country, it was the fall of our aspirations and achievements, for which we worked for 20 years.

The night our province fell to the Taliban, I was numb.

I couldn’t believe we were, overnight, 20 years behind. If we were supposed to live 20 years ago, I would say to myself, then why did I suffer so much? To reach where I was, I had run so hard, and I had injured my feet metaphorically. Was it even worth it? But all the achievements, aspirations, and dreams are multiplied by zero. Yes, I was so numb that I had nothing to say and no voice to shout.

Now, getting forced to marry a Talib, becoming a second wife, and being imprisoned at home is what awaits me.  I wish someone could take my hands and save me from this mire.

Remember, this is not only my fate; this is the fate of all Afghan girls and women who have been deprived of their most basic rights with the return of the Taliban.

Nargis Omar (pseudonym), 24, is an agricultural engineer.

This series is published in partnership with Rukhshana Media, an Afghan newsroom led by women and The Fuller Project.