We are not the same Afghan women of yesterday
di Marjana Sadat , di Marjana SadatLocal media reported the re-opening of public and private universities 20 days after the taliban assumed power, but the difference was that boys and girls had to continue their education separately
It was 9:00 p.m. and I was organising my schedule. My phone rang. It was Mariam (not her real name) one of the women protesters. Due to security concerns, she accepted that I write her story on the condition of anonymity, under the name “Mariam”.
Mariam is a twenty-seven-year-old mother to two children, a boy and a girl. She is a civil activist, and in our phone call she told me that theirs was one of the protesting groups that marched on the streets of Kabul chanting food, work, and freedom slogans. She has a master's degree in law and before the fall of Kabul she worked in a law firm.
“From the very first week the taliban entered Kabul, we went out on the streets and chanted 'food, work and freedom' slogans. We raised our voice, and we were aware that it would cost us a lot,” she said. But she doesn’t think the regime is the end of everything and was talking about the resistance in people's lives. She said during the first weeks …
It was 9:00 p.m. and I was organising my schedule. My phone rang. It was Mariam (not her real name) one of the women protesters. Due to security concerns, she accepted that I write her story on the condition of anonymity, under the name “Mariam”.
Mariam is a twenty-seven-year-old mother to two children, a boy and a girl. She is a civil activist, and in our phone call she told me that theirs was one of the protesting groups that marched on the streets of Kabul chanting food, work, and freedom slogans. She has a master's degree in law and before the fall of Kabul she worked in a law firm.
“From the very first week the taliban entered Kabul, we went out on the streets and chanted 'food, work and freedom' slogans. We raised our voice, and we were aware that it would cost us a lot,” she said. But she doesn’t think the regime is the end of everything and was talking about the resistance in people's lives. She said during the first weeks of the regime civil activists as well as people belonging to other groups decided to get out of their house and show the taliban that torture, imprisonment, and captivity were not acceptable.
“I went to see Parwana Ibrahim Khel, who has recently been released by the taliban, I wanted to see if she is well. I wish I had not seen her, Parwana is not the energetic and strong girl she was before. She has been under a lot of mental strain, so much that she could not talk. The taliban warned her family not to talk to the media about her,” she said.
“The taliban have not changed, but we are not the women of yesterday,” she believes. There was a great sadness in her voice, she said, “the girls protesting in Mazar-e-Sharif had been gang-raped by the taliban. A number of them died and a number of them were killed by their families after the rape, and there are no videos the families could use to blackmail them. In Kabul some women have prepared a poison called (rat death) so if they are raped while in custody they can end their lives in a less painful way rather than being killed by their fathers, uncles and brothers." She burst into tears and her voice trailed off, I tried to make her talk, and asked her if she knew what might happen to her and her family.
“From the first day I went on the streets, I was not afraid of dying, I was just worried about my honour and the future of my two children,” she said and added, “I raised my voice, I did my share, my Facebook was shut down, I was displaced from my home, I had to change my place of residence so that those around me would not be harmed, I lived in my friends' houses for weeks, all these risks I had accepted from the beginning, I realized that one day it would be my turn. I am ready to die, but I do not want to be arrested alive.”
The majority of citizens believe that it would be difficult for the taliban to control people as they did in the 1990s, because media outlets are still active, and can be the voice of women protesters. Girls are still going to school. In a number of provinces, girls in secondary schools too are attending classes. These things were not possible in the 1990s. It is unclear, therefore, whether the taliban have become pragmatic in the face of all these changes, or whether they are unable to carry out their desired plans.
“I think some of their statements were reassuring, but in practice we have been confused by inconsistent policies. It is not clear whether all girls can go to school, or if they can do so only in a few provinces,” Mariam said.
Local media reported the re-opening of public and private universities 20 days after the taliban assumed power, but the difference was that boys and girls had to continue their education separately. I interviewed an Afghan student named Lima Sofi Khel. She told me that she was taking her final exam when the taliban took Kabul. Her college, she explained, has sent her some images showing the dress code required now. “They sent me an image of the dress code, saying women must observe it, otherwise they would not be allowed to enter the college. I did not observe the dress code and went to college with my ordinary clothes. There were two Taliban fighters checking whether girls were wearing the clothes they had been told to wear. They did not allow in the girls that were not dressed as they wanted,” she said.
She recounted that during the first days boys and girls were separated by a curtain, but later they were sent to separate classes. In her class, out of 35 girls only 4 girls are still coming, the others left the country or chose to give up their education due to the restrictions the taliban imposed on women.
Everybody wants to know what is the future going to bring? People are worried about what is going on. They are concerned about the impact of droughts, economic collapse and the struggle for survival. It is pretty hard to predict what will happen on a long-term basis, but right now there is no hope of improving the situation.
After four decades, Afghans are experiencing a reduction in violence, but they are facing an economic catastrophe, one in which many citizens have not played a part and are not to blame for.