I’m a woman living in Kabul and I’m a teacher. Up until eight months ago, I was a staff member at The City of Knowledge (COK), an education center that helped women go to university and pursue the career of their choice. Through my work I have seen the ambition and hope of many women in my country. Since the Taliban returned, our lives have changed drastically. We are like moving bodies without souls. Our dreams and the knowledge we could have had are shattered.
I’ve always believed that history is a progression, but I’ve witnessed my country’s rapid regression to the Middle Ages in recent months. In the past, women and girls took small steps towards a better future. Now going to school has become an unattainable dream for hundreds of thousands of them.
Our lives were far from perfect before the Taliban returned to power. Every day my young students risked their lives to get to schools and study centers like ours that were targets of the war. But the moment the girls entered school, they thrived – despite the bloody attacks outside and a desolate economic and security situation, I could see their hopes for fruitful careers as doctors, engineers and lawyers.
But the US diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, who brokered the US “peace deal” with the Taliban, has thrown us, with the stroke of a pen, into a dark abyss of ignorance, terror and brutality in a matter of hours.
A few months ago, the Taliban pledged to reopen girls’ schools. Not surprisingly, they are now withdrawing that commitment. Women cannot work or leave home without a burqa, they cannot laugh, wear makeup or high heels, they cannot be with a man who is not their mahram (father, brother, husband or son). They cannot go to school or university.
As a teacher, I dreamed that my students would become Afghanistan’s future doctors, engineers, lawyers, scientists, artists and technical experts and inspire countless others to do the same. Since the Taliban have regained full control of our country, our school has had to close. Many of my fellow teachers fled our country in fear for their lives.
I remember telling my students the news. Some of them said, “Isn’t that our right? Is it a crime to seek education? Jesus Christ, billionaires are going into space and we’re not even allowed to go to school!” The West has played a terrible game with our country over the decades. I think the greatest crime against humanity is never to let a country move forward. The US and its allies have handed over our already battered motherland to a bunch of criminals and terrorists, and it is women and girls who are now paying the price.
Afghanistan is far from free, so the responsibility to drive change in our country lies with those outside our borders who have the freedom and the means to speak out.
Ultimately, the policy and approach of the US and other Western powers to the well-being, equality and empowerment of women worldwide will only change if the people of their countries demand it. So my message is to you, the people of the West who are electing these governments. You have a moral obligation to take in more refugees from Afghanistan and elsewhere, and to increase aid to organizations working to empower and protect women in the world’s most dangerous places.
If the politicians currently in power are unwilling to take these steps, it is imperative that Western people take action to replace them with leaders who will. You have the power to choose your representatives, we don’t. As a woman living in Kabul, I urge you to show your solidarity and courage and to support us and stand by our side. Help us empower women and girls again.
The author is a former teacher at the now-defunct COK, an education center for girls and women in Kabul supported by the charity V-Day. Her name has been changed to protect her safety