She was 20 years old, dreaming of a fulfilled life. The smart, ambitious young woman was among 20 Afghan women and girls enrolled in a secret school, seeking knowledge and a future.
But the Taliban were back in charge after Western forces withdrew from Afghanistan in September 2021, and they had different plans, as did her authoritarian, ultra-conservative father; she would marry an Afghan man of his choosing living in Turkey, a man she did not love.
She saw no way out of this future she did not want. She left a note, placed a smartphone in record mode, and hanged herself.
“I lost her,” said Negin, her 33-year-old teacher who set up a school in her home in a suburb of a city in northern Afghanistan. “She was 20 years old with lots of dreams.”
Negin goes by one name because she fears the Taliban’s retribution. Her school teaching young women English, vocational skills and activities such as painting, are forbidden by the Taliban. But she is determined to provide a bright spot, a glimmer of hope in their bleak existence.
The world does not care about us.
Negin, 33
Negin went to her student’s house to seek the truth, but the young woman’s father — a vegetable seller who pushes a wheelbarrow to earn a living, the family’s sole breadwinner — turned her away and refused to hand over the video.
The Taliban had already forced the family to sign a commitment letter to not make her death public, a suppressive move by the group to prevent tarnishing their image globally.
“The Taliban warned the family that if (the suicide) leaks, all will be punished,” Negin said.
“I wanted to let the world know how we are suffering,” said Negin, referring to her unsuccessful attempt to obtain the recording and note left behind. “But the world does not care about us.”
* * *
Afghan women have been the greatest victims of Afghanistan’s decades-long conflict. No regime in the world has ever caged women as ruthlessly as the Taliban. Women are barred even from hearing each other’s voices. To appear in public, women must cover from head to toe, including their faces. School beyond Grade 6 and higher education is forbidden. Offices and workplaces are shut against them, and women are banned from visiting public places, parks or travelling long distances without a male guardian. Even the hope of medical training as nurses or midwives has vanished.
This is Afghanistan today under the Taliban. The relentless oppression has taken a devastating toll on Afghan women. Their mental health is deteriorating, their spirits crushed. And some, like Negin’s student, have resorted to suicide.
As the world’s focus has shifted to other regions and conflicts — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war — the story of millions of Afghan women suffering under the Taliban is a crisis largely forgotten.
Postmedia spoke to several women in Afghanistan willing to share their stories — at great personal risk. The challenges were immense, from language barriers, time zone differences and poor internet connectivity to deeply conservative moral codes that do not allow male journalists to directly speak to women. I relied on female intermediaries to connect me with women. Some could only speak to me when no men were at home. Their courage comes at a high price: Under the Taliban’s harsh restrictions and their families’ tight controls, the women risked imprisonment, torture and even death for daring to have their voices heard.
In exchange for a peace deal with the Taliban, the world traded Afghan women and their future.
Negin
In stark contrast, less than four years ago, Afghan women were thriving in the country. Nearly four million girls were enrolled in school from Grades 1to 12 between 2002 and 2021. More than 80,000 female teachers taught in more than 18,000 schools, and approximately 100,000 Afghan women pursued higher education in universities.
Afghanistan’s parliament boasted 63 female MPs out of 250 seats, and hundreds of female journalists and media workers upheld the pillars of free speech, challenging powerful officials and holding them accountable. Women served as cabinet ministers, mayors, even governors of provinces. The country had more than 500 female prosecutors, and thousands of women ran small businesses, fuelling economic growth.
More importantly, 20 years of democracy in Afghanistan gave rise to a generation of spirited young Afghan women and men who were the heart and soul of the country. The presence of the U.S.-led coalition — including Canada — in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021 brought significant social and economic changes to the country. Afghanistan had a vibrant sports scene, hosting major events in Kabul and establishing its own football league, which attracted male and female spectators. Music concerts featuring male and female pop singers filled the air with joy, while talent shows akin to American Idol showcased the voices of young Afghan girls and boys alike. Western-style cafes and restaurants were bustling with men and women sitting together, discussing politics, sharing ideas and enjoying life.
The country seemed alive.
All that changed on Aug. 15, 2021.
The Taliban had stormed into Nimruz province in the south on Aug. 6, swiftly followed by the capture of other provinces in the north, east and west. In less than two weeks, Kabul, the Afghan capital, fell into the hands of the insurgent group. The U.S.-backed Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, fled the country to the United Arab Emirates on Aug. 15 with his top aides and wife, leaving behind a nation in chaos.
On that day, I sat in the lobby of a hotel in Dubai, glued to an Arabic news channel. The screen showed a victorious, bearded Taliban commander seated in the presidential palace, triumphantly announcing their victory. I knew that place well; it was where I, along with dozens of journalist friends, had attended press briefings by senior officials and presidents, and questioned world leaders on Afghanistan’s wars.
It was a surreal and heartbreaking moment. That scene marked the end of a free Afghanistan — my Afghanistan, a country of hope, progress and aspirations, despite endless war. It was a death knell for a vibrant and thriving young generation.
Like millions of Afghans, my family had fled to neighbouring Pakistan in the 1990s when the Taliban captured my home province, Ghazni, just south of Kabul. In Pakistan, my siblings and I went to school during the day and spent the rest of our time weaving carpets to help feed the family.
When the Taliban were toppled by the U.S. in 2001, we returned home to rebuild our lives. A generation of young Afghans emerged determined to make the most of new-found freedoms and opportunities. We attended school and university. We voted in elections — despite the fraud in the system — because practising democracy, even imperfectly, was a transformative, deeply moving experience.
That once-free generation has been crushed. Some, like me, have fled, seeking safety in foreign countries, while many remain imprisoned in their own country. Especially the women.
An August 2024 report by the United Nations identified a mental health crisis among Afghan women. Sixty-eight per cent of Afghan women reported having “bad” or “very bad” mental health. And eight per cent said they knew at least one woman or girl who had attempted suicide.
Alison Davidian, the Country Representative for UN Women in Afghanistan, warned that the Taliban’s restrictions on women and girls will affect generations to come. “Our analysis shows that by 2026, the impact of leaving 1.1 million girls out of school and 100,000 women out of university correlates to an increase in early child-bearing by 45 per cent and an increase in maternal mortality by up to 50 per cent,” she said.
When I explored the possibility of speaking with the dead student’s devastated mother, Negin suggested she would try to smuggle a phone into the student’s house during a visit. That plan failed — there are always men at home, and the mother is illiterate and unable to use a phone. Negin also sent a discreet message through a trusted female messenger, asking the mother to visit her house and come up with an excuse for her husband. But the mother was unable to find a way to leave unnoticed.
The family has since relocated from the suburbs to a more remote enclave, to escape the stigma surrounding their daughter’s death. Modernization came to Afghanistan’s urban areas with the West’s support, but most Afghans still live in rural areas, where traditional practices and conservative ideologies dominate daily life and men remain the ultimate decision-makers.
NEGIN, 33
Negin’s life, like that of millions of Afghan women, was forever changed in August 2021, when the Taliban swept through Afghanistan in just 11 days. Once a preschool teacher, she worked on an education project sponsored by UNICEF to support impoverished families. Beyond teaching, she was a passionate painter, an animal-rights activist, and the founder of a small farm she established using her own resources. She also trained women in esthetics and other vocational skills, empowering them to become self-reliant.
When the Taliban closed in on Mazar-e-Sharif, the country’s second-largest city, Negin found herself trapped by the insurgent group, notorious for its brutality during their previous rule in the 1990s. As she held her two children close, she was gripped by fear and painful memories of her own childhood: visions of women being lashed in public squares, stoned in sports stadiums and punished for not adhering to the Taliban’s dress code or hijab.
With no other option, she made the decision to abandon everything and flee to Kabul, which was then still under the control of the U.S.-backed Afghan government.
That fragile sense of relief lasted just two days. On Aug. 15, 2021, the Taliban captured Kabul, plunging Negin — and countless others — into a new chapter of uncertainty and fear.
As Western countries airlifted thousands of local allies from Kabul airport, the world witnessed desperate scenes of people trying to escape — rushing onto the tarmac or clinging to military planes as they took off. Canada has welcomed some 54,000 Afghans through various immigration programs. These programs prioritize individuals at risk and their family members, including interpreters and partners of the Canadian military, women’s rights activists, journalists and members of ethnic and religious minorities persecuted by the Taliban and Islamic State.
While in Kabul, Negin desperately sought ways to be evacuated through the international community and organizations supporting vulnerable Afghan women. She was unsuccessful.
“Women like us, who fought against the Taliban and their ideology, need to be in safety,” she said.
Shattered and hopeless, she returned to her hometown to find her training centre for Afghan women looted. The Taliban had removed the “Women for Women” billboard and some of her animals had died from hunger because no one had cared for them.
“The Taliban shut down and destroyed everything I had in my facility,” she recalls. “They’re also against keeping pets.”
During the first two years under Taliban rule, Negin describes her life as “being in complete darkness and hopelessness.” Her daily routine was confined to moving around her small house, which has only a tiny yard, and spending her time in the kitchen cooking and washing dishes.
“With such routine, life becomes meaningless as you cannot do what you want outside your home,” she said.
She used to spend her days working with children and women outside her home, but now she couldn’t even go out to buy groceries without a male guardian, let alone meet friends or take her kids to the park.
“There were days I couldn’t get out of bed,” she said, speaking of the depression that came with being confined at home.
“Several times I was thinking of committing suicide because there was no hope and future for me. Women cannot laugh with one another in public. Women cannot go to parks. Women cannot work and study. Do you see hope for yourself?” she asks. “Of course not, and it makes you think of ending your life.”
She wants her children to have a good life and access to quality education. But for her 12-year-old daughter, school is no longer an option. Worried about her nine-year-old son, Negin decided to stop sending him to school out of fear he might be radicalized by the Taliban’s curriculum. “I teach my son and daughter at home,” she said. “I don’t want them to become extremists.”
Reflecting on her life before the Taliban, during the era of the Western-backed government, she remembers the pride and fulfilment of working to uplift women in a male-dominated, authoritarian society. As someone who studied and earned a degree in English, she describes her life as having “fallen from the top to the bottom.”
Negin’s daughter shares the same fears Negin had as a child in the 1990s, during the previous Taliban regime. Last year, when her daughter was in Grade 6, the Taliban instructed girls to cover their faces in addition to wearing full-body coverings. The new rules terrified her. “Whenever she sees a Talib, she is scared of them,” says Negin. “That’s why she always stays at home and cannot go out. She is depressed all the time.”
At home, her daughter spends most of her time with their three pets — two rabbits and a cat — and watching TV or scrolling through social media. These activities are often interrupted due to unreliable electricity and poor internet access.
“Whenever she sees girls going to school and living freely in the West,” Negin says of her daughter’s reaction when watching TV or browsing social media, “she asks me, ‘Why don’t I have such a life and freedom?’ Her question stabs my heart like a dagger.
“The most painful part is that I can’t do anything for her.”
Since 2021, the Taliban have summoned Negin twice to the police station on suspicion of running a secret vocational training centre and painting art pieces — forbidden activities. She risks imprisonment and torture.
Like all Afghan women, Negin must cover herself from head to toe and wear a surgical mask to hide her face. However, due to her breathing condition, she finds it difficult to keep the mask on for long.
One day, she was stopped by the Taliban’s Vice and Virtue police for not wearing her surgical mask. They threatened to beat her. “I confronted him and defended myself,” Negin recalls. “I told him, ‘I am doing the right thing because I have a breathing issue.’”
Leaving the scene, the police fired warning shots into the air. When Negin, along with her father and husband, stopped their car, the officer approached and pointed at her, showing a photo of his cousin who had been killed fighting NATO forces. “I lost my cousin to protect one strand of your hair,” the officer told her. “We did jihad for this cause.”
The officer intended to take her to prison for arguing with him, but her father’s apologies and pleading spared her from detention.
Negin criticizes the West’s lack of pressure on the Taliban for their treatment of Afghan women and girls — and the U.S. peace deal in Doha in 2020 that ultimately paved the way for Kabul’s fall to the Taliban.
“In exchange for a peace deal with the Taliban, the world traded Afghan women and their future.”
* * *
In the summer of 2019, Shahabuddin Delawar, a senior member of the Taliban’s political office and negotiating team with the U.S. and Afghan government, announced at an intra-Afghan peace summit, “Women will have the right to education — from Grade 1 to PhD.”
Months before in Washington, D.C., then-president Donald Trump appointed veteran Afghan American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad to negotiate a peace deal for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, aiming to end America’s longest war.
After more than 18 months of negotiations, the Taliban and the U.S. signed a peace deal in Doha, Qatar, in February 2020. As part of the agreement, the Taliban promised, among other commitments, not to attack American troops and to cut ties with al-Qaida.
For years, the Taliban’s diplomats in Doha projected a more moderate image of the group to international diplomats and the Afghan public. They claimed the Taliban had “changed,” promising that women could study, work and participate in politics, while the rights of minorities would be respected.
After they captured Afghanistan, those promises quickly evaporated. The group began imposing harsh restrictions on Afghans, rolling back rights and freedoms.
The Taliban’s current supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, has remained out of the public eye since seizing power in 2021, avoiding appearances and photographs, much like Mullah Omar, the Taliban’s founder, who successfully evaded capture by Western forces but died in 2013 of tuberculosis. Based in Khandahar, the hardline cleric is reportedly surrounded by a group of ultraconservative scholars. He holds ultimate decision-making authority.
He began by banning girls from schools, then universities and eventually from the workforce. The decrees continue to surface, further tightening the group’s grip on Afghan society. In a recent decree, he instructed Afghans to cover their windows to prevent outsiders from seeing women inside their homes.
No country in the world has officially recognized the Taliban government, but some regional powers, including China and Russia, have accepted the group’s diplomats and keep their embassies open in Afghanistan.
The international community maintains that recognition of the Taliban government depends on their respect for women’s rights, access to education and the establishment of an inclusive government that represents all ethnic groups.
MUNISA, 33
Munisa Mubariz, 33, a former senior official in Afghanistan’s Ministry of Finance, lived under Taliban rule for a year and a half. Despite recuperating from surgery and unable to walk properly, she went to her office on the morning of Aug. 15, 2021, and witnessed chaos in her city.
Senior government officials and even her own staff were fleeing. “The Taliban are on the outskirts of the city,” one of her staff warned her. Hours later, after navigating traffic jams and citywide chaos, she returned home.
“We had freedom,” she said of Afghanistan’s democratic era. “We lost everything in an instant. We lost democracy. We lost the achievements of 20 years.”
Shocked and traumatized by the sudden collapse of her country — a place where she completed her schooling, earning bachelor and postgraduate degrees — Munisa initially hoped the Taliban would allow women to study and work. However, when the Taliban’s wave of decrees banned women from public life, she and others took to the streets in protest.
“Two of our protesters were forced to have miscarriages,” she says, describing how two pregnant women lost their babies after being beaten by the Taliban. “Another protester’s gallbladder was injured, and she had to undergo surgery.”
On Sept. 4, 2021, she joined her comrades to demonstrate in front of the presidential palace. Chanting for their rights to education and work, the protesters faced brutal retaliation. “The Taliban attacked one of the women,” Munisa recalled. “They’ve always wanted women to stay silent. They consider it a sin for women to speak loudly.”
Their protests continued. During one demonstration, Munisa was captured and imprisoned by the Taliban in the basement of a supermarket where she and others had sought refuge. Held for four hours, she confronted a Taliban fighter, asking why they were banning women from work and education.
“He pointed his gun at my forehead,” she recounted, describing how the Taliban fighter threatened to kill her if she continued to argue. “I was scared.”
Nearly 19,000 people are in the Taliban’s jails across Afghanistan, among them are 1,376 women, according to leaked documents hacked by unknown sources.
As one of the leaders of the Afghan women’s movement, Munisa lived in hiding. She constantly moved from place to place, spending one night at a friend’s house and the next somewhere else. “Life was hell for me,” she said. During this time, her parents, who lived in northern Afghanistan, came to Kabul for medical treatment. Munisa could not meet with them for 20 days, fearing for her safety.
She finally fled Afghanistan, and in January 2024, resettled in Canada.
* * *
Kandahar, a southern province bordering Iran and Pakistan, is the birthplace of the Taliban. Although the group’s cabinet and prime minister are based in Kabul, senior officials frequently travel to Kandahar for meetings.
Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Canada, as part of the NATO-led coalition, deployed troops to Kandahar to help combat al-Qaida and the Taliban.
Canada’s combat mission in Afghanistan ended in 2011 after 10 years, but the nation continued supporting Afghan security forces until 2014. This mission, aimed at bringing democracy and Western values to Afghanistan, came with heavy sacrifices: 158 Canadian Armed Forces personnel lost their lives to Taliban attacks, along with a Canadian diplomat, and Michelle Lang, a Calgary Herald reporter who was embedded with Canadian forces.
Canada also played a significant role in reconstruction efforts, supporting education for girls and improving health care. Canada’s two signature projects in Kandahar were the renovation of the Dahla Dam and the construction of 50 schools. These two projects alone cost approximately $90 million. In total, Global Affairs Canada says Ottawa spent $3.9 billion on peace, stabilization and reconstruction initiatives in Afghanistan.
MASUMA, 22
For young women like Masuma, 22, who hails from Kandahar, those investments and sacrifices from Canada have yielded little. The schools are closed to them, they are unable to continue their education.
Masuma, who uses only her first name to avoid being identified by the Taliban, was in her final semester of Grade 12 when the Taliban captured her city. She was fortunate to have passed her graduation exam before the group shut down schools for girls.
Masuma is a graduate of Malalai High School, a facility built by Canadians. Now, that school only allows girls to study up to Grade 6.
“Those investments have been wasted,” she added.
She later enrolled in a midwifery college, but that was closed in January 2024. Masuma now spends her days at home, reminiscing about the times she hung out with friends and attended school. She says the despair has driven her to the brink of suicide.
“I wish there was no Afghanistan in this world,” she said in a phone interview with Postmedia. “Or I wish I had not been born as a girl here. It’s a crime to be a girl.”
Masuma used to enjoy cycling and driving her uncle’s car. Now, even her brother avoids taking her out, making excuses that the Taliban might cause trouble.
“The world is innovating modern things and moving forward,” she said while criticizing the Taliban, who she describes as having spent most of their lives in mountains and deserts with little understanding of urban life. “But they’re stuck in old values and think we’re infidels.”
Last year, Masuma’s family was forced to move from their neighbourhood in Kandahar because of harassment from neighbours who disapproved of her attending college. “They would throw their garbage into our yard,” she said. “Even boys threw stones at me.”
Despite the risks, Masuma and her mother secretly teach school subjects at home, providing a small source of income. To avoid detection by the Taliban, their students carry the Qur’an and other religious books, pretending they are attending a madrassa.
While the Taliban has banned schools for girls, religious centres known as madrassas remain open and are run by the group. These are institutions where Taliban scholars teach Islamic studies, while also influencing young people with the group’s ideology.
* * *
Like much of the world, Canada has refused to recognize the Taliban’s regime, primarily due to the group’s violations of women’s rights, its restrictions on education, and lack of inclusivity in government. Late last year, Canada, along with Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, and 22 other countries, announced it had taken formal action to hold Afghanistan accountable under the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
“The Government of Canada is deeply troubled by the Taliban’s systematic violations of the rights of women and girls,” Global Affairs Canada spokesperson Clémence Grevey said in a written statement to Postmedia. “We take every opportunity to convey our expectation that the de facto authorities fulfil Afghanistan’s international obligations. These include upholding the human rights of all Afghans, including women and girls, and religious and ethnic minorities, as required by international law.”
Since 2021, Canada has committed over $249 million in humanitarian assistance and $112 million in support of basic services to help meet the needs of vulnerable populations in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries, Grevey added.
To overcome the harsh restrictions and sustain gains made prior to 2021, Canada’s funding has contributed to approximately 25,000 Afghan girls continuing to access primary education through community-based classes.
“Canada has also been able to stand up new programming in the education sector, invest in online secondary education accessed by Afghan girls in Afghanistan and the region, and support Afghan women in accessing university-level studies in the region,” said Grevey.
ROYA, 15
Despite such promises, millions of young Afghan women like 15-year-old Roya are struggling with hopelessness. One of Masuma’s secret students in Khandahar, Roya was once passionate about becoming a journalist, inspired by Yama Siawash, a renowned Afghan journalist who was killed by the Taliban four years ago.
Yama, along with two colleagues, was struck by an explosive attack on his car in front of his house. He spent nearly a decade as a prominent political talk show host and newscaster for one of Afghanistan’s leading news channels before becoming a public relations official at Afghanistan’s central bank.
“My life changed completely when the Taliban arrived three years ago,” Roya said. “I’ve become illiterate and can no longer follow my dreams.”
Roya is shy, reluctant and would only speak to me through a female intermediary. But she showed a glimmer of youthful exuberance not yet extinguished by the Taliban: “If the Taliban impose even more crackdowns on us, people will eventually rise up and protest to topple them.
“Or maybe a miracle will happen.”
Illustrations by Brice Hall, National Post
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Sitting in a cafe in Toronto, scrolling through job postings, I stumbled upon the Michelle Lang Fellowship. Her name immediately struck a chord. Michelle Lang was a Canadian journalist with the Calgary Herald who lost her life in Afghanistan, my homeland. She was killed in a Taliban attack in Kandahar while embedded with Canadian troops, reporting on the war and Ottawa-funded women’s education projects.
A wave of emotions washed over me. She was killed in the country I come from, a place that became a graveyard for her dreams, while I have now found peace in her homeland. What if I could write about Afghan women — the same women she was reporting on — now imprisoned in their own country, banned from education and erased from public life?
Since 2021, countless stories about Afghan women have made the headlines. It’s easy to say that they are banned from schools, universities and workplaces. But what if we truly delved into their daily lives — every excruciating moment of their existence over the past few years? Once free and soaring like birds, these women are now caged.
Imagine a young woman who once walked the city streets to attend her studies or teach others, now confined to the walls of her home. Her life reduced to serving as a cook and cleaner for her family or being forced into a marriage she didn’t choose. Imagine not being able to step outside without a male guardian.
The relentless oppression has taken a devastating toll on Afghan women. Their mental health is deteriorating, their spirits crushed. For some the suffocating despair has led them to suicide.
In an August 2024 report, the United Nations stated that 68 per cent of Afghan women reported having “bad” or “very bad” mental health. Additionally, eight per cent said they knew at least one other woman or girl who had attempted suicide.
Michelle Lang’s story inspired me to tell the world about these women — women whose dreams are now shackled, whose voices are silenced.
— Ehsanullah Amiri