What kind of a future are Afghan women looking at under the Taliban rule? What are their fears? Why their despair? Team KZINE spoke to a highly educated young Afghan woman living in Kabul. In order to protect her from any reprisal, we shall not state more about her identity.
I am sorry I did not take your call earlier because we feel very afraid. We are highly disturbed. We do not know who is our friend and who is our enemy. Keep us in your prayers.
I was working in an office here. Now I am so broken. They took away our identity. Only because we are women, everything is finished for us. We are not able to work anymore. We are trying to figure out and digest this quick change. We have lost everything – our identity, our flag, everything. For now we are trapped. Just a few months ago we came from India. I studied there. We should not have come back from India. We thought we will live in our own country and work here. But everything happened in the blink of an eye and now we are trapped. The Taliban do not involve women in money work.
We were in India for education purposes. My other friends were there too. We are shattered now. We studied with so much passion, but now it is a waste. Now we are under threat all the time. How will we escape now? There is no flight. How will we go to India or to some other country? We cannot go to Pakistan. It isn’t worth it! The women are feeling crushed. We will have to live life without meaning. We are trapped. I just hope and pray that someday we are able to escape this wretched existence.
Some people say that the Taliban are not aliens. They are part of Afghan society. Then why people are so frightened in Afghanistan? Those people are the ones who try to normalize the Taliban. The Taliban have been brought up in caves. They do not think the way normal people think. At this time, they are playing strategically. They need international recognition, so they are saying some good things. Unfortunately, some Indian Muslims support them blindly. They are not here. They don’t feel the desperation. The plan of the Taliban is to make Afghanistan the nest of terrorists. Please do not listen to media propaganda that is trying to normalize them. I was a child when for the first time Taliban captured Kabul. We could not go to school. As an innocent child, I would pray that it was all a bad dream. I used to pray that I would wake up and not ever see the Taliban again.
But again they came. Again history is repeated. From my childhood, I am seeing the destruction of my country. It is so painful. But it is out of my control. Like me there are thousands of girls here. Till recently I was enjoying my work and being among my people. But it was just a dream. I started working some months ago in my area of specialization. Most of our Department Heads were Indian. I was happy to see progress in my country. But all of it is over now. Taliban allow girls to study only till primary school. They don’t allow women even on national TV as anchors.
When I and other women see some Indian Muslims supporting the Taliban blindly, we think they need to be educated. They say this because they have never been victims. They have freedom. Their future is secure.
