Afghanistan under Taliban rule has become a land where everything is forbidden for women and girls. Recently, by order of the group’s supreme leaders, the last sliver of hope for girls — continuing their education and doing online work using the internet — is to be taken from them entirely. The Taliban are so hostile to women that they shut every path to self-sufficiency and progress.
When I heard the internet had been cut in several provinces of Afghanistan, I felt deeply upset and immediately thought of Kabul. The shocking news spread across social media by the minute, multiplying my worry. I kept thinking: if this continues and reaches Kabul, what will I do? The only way I can study, work, and ultimately earn an income is through the internet. Now this restrictive decision by the Taliban will undo all the girls’ efforts.
At first, when word of the internet shutdown spread everywhere, I refused to believe it and thought it was a rumor — but sadly, it was true. That was when I felt a deep despair. How long must we live under the arbitrary decisions of this group? Every door we open to our future, they close again. In the country where we were born, they have even taken away a woman’s right to breathe. How long must we wait?
We have all seen how recently girls and women have turned to online work. Many have built online shops on social media or started other businesses and thus achieved financial independence. At the same time, many girls study online at home, courses in foreign languages, school classes, writing, and other skills. If the internet is restricted further, many girls will be forced to drop out of education. I am one of those girls: alongside my studies, I run an online shop selling girls’ items, and it provides for my needs. For a week now, bad news about internet cuts in various provinces has been coming in, and this news has stirred widespread anxiety.
During these four years of their rule, the Taliban have continually tried to prevent women and girls from any activity. First, they shut the gates of schools and universities, then they took away women’s jobs, imposed the kind of dress they wanted, forbade women and girls from traveling, silenced their voices, arrested girls under the pretext of enforcing hijab, and now they are closing the last window of hope, namely online study and work.
Despite all these restrictions, women have resisted and found ways to continue learning and working, but the Taliban have always been a thorn in the girls’ path. We Afghan girls have suffered greatly during these four years and continue to suffer, yet no one hears our voice. We have cried out repeatedly and demanded the end of the Taliban, but our voices have been strangled in our throats. Now that our freedoms tighten day by day, there is no one to raise a voice with us and once more protest this group’s oppression and injustice.
We have asked only for our basic rights, but the Taliban have never heeded our requests. Now it is time to stand up to this group and free ourselves from the injustice we have endured for four years.
You can read the Persian version of this Afghan woman’s word here:
