Women in Afghanistan describe Taliban's brutal repression, 3 years after U.S. withdrawal

This week marks three years since the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. and NATO allies from Afghanistan. It also marks three years of intensifying repression of women under the Taliban regime in what the UN has described as a “striking erasure of women from public life.” Producer Zeba Warsi spoke to Afghan women inside the country about their lives today. Amna Nawaz reports.

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Amna Nawaz: Today marks three years since the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. and NATO allies from Afghanistan. It also marks three years of intensifying repression of women under the Taliban regime, what the U.N. has described as a — quote — “striking erasure of women from public life.”

Producer Zeba Warsi spoke to Afghan women inside the country about their lives today.

Once the hub of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Bagram Air Base is now the Taliban stage, a show of force with abandoned U.S. and NATO equipment. In 2021, a different scene here, as desperate Afghans clung to airplane wings during a chaotic U.S. withdrawal. This month, the Taliban draped the streets with their flags, marking three years in power.

Missing from these scenes, Afghans women, who say they’re being erased from public life in a wave of Taliban restrictions.

Sara, Founder, Secret Girls Schools: It is like being in a jail, but the prison is your home.

Amna Nawaz: We’re calling this woman Sara to protect her identity. Women in Afghanistan, including girls as young as 10, are now banned from attending schools and colleges. A new law passed last week states women are forbidden from looking at men they’re not related to and banned from being heard in public.

Sara spoke to us from an undisclosed location in Afghanistan.

Sara: You’re not allowed to go to restaurants or university, nowhere but just your home, because they say the best place for women and young girls is their home.

Amna Nawaz: But Sara, a teacher, refuses to relent. She founded an organization that runs secret schools like this one.

Sara: We were teaching them English, instead of Islamic studies. We take actions very conservatively. Our classes’ numbers are significantly low. The number of students are low because we have to let those students to join the classes that are very trustable.

Woman: Hello. Good morning, guys.

Amna Nawaz: The risk, she says, is always there because the Taliban are always watching.

Sara: Their officials and their agents came into our classes and they found the English books. They saw us teaching English, instead of Islamic studies. And they arrested our man colleague.

We advise our volunteers to be very careful. But they have that inspiration and that motivation to do something for girls.

Amna Nawaz: And she decries the Taliban’s warped view of her faith.

Sara: I am a Muslim. You can see the paintings behind me. That’s a verse and a verse of Koran. And I believe in Islam. I haven’t read in the Koran any banning on women’s education.

What the Taliban are not Islam. They’re not Muslim. And they’re just extremists. They’re radicalists.

Amna Nawaz: Sara is not alone in her defiance. Online, video surfaced of Afghan women defying Taliban law and singing in public. The lyrics to this song, “You made me a prisoner in my home.” The United Nations says two-thirds of Afghan women suffer from mental health issues and note an increase in suicide attempt rates among women.

A stolen future has left this woman we’re calling Roya with dimmed hopes.

Roya, Teacher, Secret School For Girls: One of my fears is that all of my education become nothing. I cannot use my knowledge. I cannot continue my educations. I cannot work in the society.

Amna Nawaz: Once an economic student, she’s now a teacher for an online school. Banned from public life, she was forced to take up sewing lessons, a permitted activity by the Taliban. But she’s not abandoning her dreams.

Roya: One of my biggest dreams is that I become an independent girl and I be head of my own company. And, inshallah, I never give up for my trying. I try my best to achieve my dreams.

Amna Nawaz: Sara says secret schools like this are one way to fan the flames of a generation of young girls’ dreams.

Sara: That’s why we have to take the risk. It could be a punishment. It could be a — maybe a death threat. It could be arresting, anything. But we have to take the risk.