As I see it | Afghan women and girls still trapped and suffering despite Taliban’s promises

Sara Seerat, 27, and Sahar*, 19, are among the most courageous women I’ve ever interviewed. They are from Afghanistan, where the hardline Islamist Taliban took power last August.

Seerat, a women’s rights advocate who once worked for the government, has since been subjected to threatening text messages and harassment for organising a protest, and has experienced frustration at not being able to go to work or move around on the streets by herself.

Sahar said she was no longer able to attend university and had to close down a cafe she had recently set up for women. She lamented the fate of those who were left unemployed after that.

More than six months after the Taliban toppled the Western-backed government, Afghan women are increasingly struggling to live their lives freely. Even though the Taliban has promised to uphold rights and freedoms, some women have been detained for protesting peacefully and even for claiming the right to work or study.

For Sahar, who was born during the American occupation of Afghanistan and grew up believing she could complete a degree and run a business, the suppression has had a damaging psychological effect.

“If this situation continues in Afghanistan, I’m sure all Afghan women will suffer from depression and mental health problems,” she told me.
Now women “do not have the right to education, the right to work. And they do not even have the right to protest peacefully.

Every day, women from different provinces and parts of the country are imprisoned for claiming their rights,” Sahar said. She does not trust the Taliban’s promises to respect women’s rights. “So far it has not happened, and it will not happen.”