12 Afghan Women Detail Daily Struggles Under Taliban Rule 5 Years After Kabul Fell
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Aug 11
12 Afghan Women Detail Daily Struggles Under Taliban Rule 5 Years After Kabul Fell
3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Aug 11
Summary
Twelve Afghan women described lives narrowed by Taliban rule, from a former soldier stripped of her uniform to a 12-year-old facing the end of schooling after sixth grade.
Their accounts show how restrictions reshape daily routines: an undercover journalist hides her laptop during house searches, a dental assistant evades morality inspectors, and teachers watch girls’ education stop at age 12.
Money pressures run through the testimonies as well, with women baking bread, cleaning hotels or making bricks for as little as 200 afghanis a day while fuel and household costs rise.
Fear of exposure, arrest or forced dependence remains constant, whether from Taliban questioning, surveillance cameras, hostile neighbors or relatives pressing girls toward silence or marriage.
Five years after the Taliban retook Kabul, the stories extend earlier reports of systemic repression by showing its intimate effects on work, education, mobility and hope inside Afghan homes.