Afghan women wait for the Taliban to let them return to work, but many have little hope

When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s, Sara Seerat was just a young child. She grew up hearing stories of violence, restrictions, and displacement.

"And for 20 years these were just stories from the past," she sighed.

"But now I am seeing them, it's harder. It has impacted every aspect of a woman's life, the work, the education, the cultural [activities]," said Seerat, 27.

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"The only thing that remains is that we are alive ... That is something that is left for some of us."

Thousands of women across the country like Seerat have had their rights restricted since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in August. Many have been unable to return to their jobs and are struggling to make ends meet. This Week in Asia spoke to three working women about how much their lives had changed in recent months.

Seerat has been an advocate for women's rights and female journalists. More recently, she was an adviser to the High Council for Women, which was under the Ministry for Women's Affairs. But she lost her job after the ministry was replaced by a department for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice.

Before the Taliban took over, Seerat had a hectic schedule - giving lectures, attending meetings, taking trips from the capital Kabul to her home province, Kapisa, in the north-east of the country. All of that has stopped.

Her bank account - like that of other government officials - has been closed. She is now forced to move from one location to another in an attempt to evade threats to her life.

The changes started to sink in slowly.

The days of hailing a taxi by herself are also gone.

"I feel that I need a male to accompany me ... It's really sort of indescribable, this unknown threat and fear that looms around you when you're walking outside," Seerat said.

She said before the Taliban took over, women would face "some harassment", but nothing compared to the current situation. "It wasn't like this before. Like I was telling you, I was driving from one province to another province in a local car."

The need to protect herself and her family became evident after September 10, when she travelled to Kapisa to organise a protest seeking equal rights for women.

"The Taliban announced their cabinet and no woman had been included, so we decided to come out and demand our rights," she recalled.

Seerat, who convinced her brother to accompany her, was also angry because a space used to provide training for women had been occupied by the Taliban.

"I went to this protest site, it was in front of a high school. And there were my other friends, who had also brought some slogans and we started the protest," Seerat said.

It did not take long before Taliban vehicles arrived and violence erupted. Seerat and other demonstrators started running away and hid in a house nearby.

"We were there and the Taliban broke the door and came after us. They started beating everyone, very severely ... They also arrested my brother and two cousins."

Seerat tried to escape but she was eventually detained and held in a car for about three hours.

"I was constantly telling them that 'OK, I was the organiser, but the other women and my brother and two cousins have no [responsibility]. You have me. Please, release them'."

She was interrogated but eventually let go. Her brother and two cousins remained in custody for three days.

"It was a horrific day ... it was the first protest that I saw turning violent by the Taliban," she said.

Seerat is aware of threats to her life - through social media and people who know her.

"Some of the threatening messages I received told me that 'you women have got into the habit of wearing what you want and doing what you want to do. It's over for you now, it's not your time'."

Such messages, she said, came not only from the Taliban, but also from some locals whose conservative mentality had been legitimised.

"Now most of the time my telephone is switched off. I just turn it on when I need it," she said.

Despite the threats, she asked for her real name to be used in this piece. "I've lost many things. I am not going to kill my name," Seerat said.

After the Taliban's first stint in power, from 1996 to 2001, ended with the American invasion, Afghan women found they were able to make significant strides.

Despite ongoing conflict in some areas and conservative values still deeply ingrained, over the past two decades scores of women made inroads into traditionally male-dominated spheres such as politics, the judiciary, and the media.

Upon returning to power in mid-August, the Taliban vowed to respect women's rights to education and work in accordance with Islamic law. But women in the country fear such rights may be gone for good.

Seerat said that activists, journalists, judges, and prosecutors were particularly at risk.

"There were women who were an inspiration for me. We were following each other's dreams. And now everything is shattered," she said. "I have no choice but to leave. And it is a difficult decision to leave everything behind."

She submitted visa applications to the United States, Canada, and Germany.

"We have a group of women working together because all of us are receiving the same level of threats, but we do not see any progress, we do not hear back," she said.

Trying to cross the border to Pakistan seems too risky, and she has little money since her account has been frozen. "There are limitations on all fronts ... I think I may just need to stay and see what my fate is."

During the US withdrawal thousands of people crammed into Kabul airport in an attempt to board evacuation flights. But many of the most vulnerable never made it out.

For Nilofar*, a 27-year-old NGO worker based in Northeastern Afghanistan, leaving seems the only way ahead.

"My applications have all the required documents," she said. "This is an emergency situation, but it's being treated as if it was a normal situation and just someone who wanted to relocate."

Nilofar, who previously worked on internationally funded projects, has sent visa applications to the US, Canada, Germany, and France. She has heard from none.

"I need to leave, I need to leave for my daughters and to be able to support the future of other girls," said Nilofar, adding that she had received threats to her personal safety.

Nilofar, who is married and has two young daughters, said that if there were signs that the Taliban intended to grant women and girls equal rights, she would remain in Afghanistan.

"It's hard to explain this feeling. I had opportunities in the past ... I had an opportunity to resettle in the US and I did not want to go," she said. "But now there comes a time when you feel that this reversal is on women, only women."

Nilofar has noticed heavier restrictions on women in her province - the scene of an armed conflict even before the Taliban took over - than in more developed areas of the country.

"It's as if the Taliban here were making these restrictions, instead of them coming from the central command," she said.

Having picnics in green spaces is now off limits and shopping for groceries is possible only with a male companion.

Her professional life has changed dramatically too. She used to teach mathematics and physics to university students, while running a non-profit organisation, which supported women. The group had to stop its activities and women no longer attend university classes. Instead, she started teaching grade-six girls, who are still allowed to attend school.

Every day, she wakes in dread, as if "waiting for something to happen".

"We want the international community to put more pressure on the Taliban and make sure that all women and girls have access to their basic rights, like education and work. It's not possible to have half of the country locked up and trying to develop the country with the other half."

Unlike Nilofar and Seerat, Sahar* was born after the American invasion, in a period when Afghanistan was slowly expanding opportunities for women rather than taking them away.

She is the owner of a cafe that caters to women in the north of the country and is a first-year university student.

Sahar, 19, grew up believing she could have dreams of her own.

"I started this business because I was thinking of creating job opportunities for other women in my community and I also wanted to have an income ... [I thought it would] help me to get what I want, to choose what I want to be," she said.

Her cafe had been running for only nine months before Afghanistan fell to the Taliban.

"I had 15 women working for me, but when the Taliban came, we started facing security threats. Our [province] was already at war and the Taliban's presence has reinforced this mentality and behaviour that prevents women from taking part in different walks of life," she said.

Before the Taliban, her cafe would teem with 40 to 50 customers a day, many of them lured by the smell of fresh local food, such as "mantu" - similar to Chinese dumplings.

The cafe also had a contract to deliver lunches to local government workers.

Back then Sahar, who lives with her family of 18, could contribute to the household's income, helping her parents and paying for her younger sister to attend school.

Now she must stay home, much like all of her employees, who are the sole breadwinners of their own families.

"I know some are engaging in physical work ... I know women are selling things from their houses, selling jewellery, just to be able to find some bread for their families," she said. "I know that many women are turning to beg because they lost their jobs and have no means of income."

Sahar now looks wistfully at her neighbourhood, as she sees few women in the streets.

"In the past, I was able to go out, girls had the chance to study and there were opportunities for women. But now we are confined to stay at home, which is a life that many of us had not experienced before."

Recently, she had to go to a government department to process some documents. "But I was not allowed to go inside because I was not properly covered. These are all the limitations and new practices that we need to get used to."

Sahar said many women like herself would prefer to leave the country. "I don't have the means ... But if I had the opportunity to leave, I would have certainly done it, just like the others, until life returned to normal," she said.

For now, Sahar drifts between moments of wariness and glimpses of hope.

"The future is uncertain, it's dark ... not only for me and my sister, but also for many women and girls across the country, who had dreams and plans to work ... everything has been in vain, all those efforts, all those investments."

But she asks Afghan women to "not lose hope" and calls on the world to amplify their voice.

"We have been through many ups and downs. We have faced many challenges and barriers, but we had the strength to come this far, [these] too will go away one day," said Sahar.

Seerat, who spends most of her days reading and writing, has ambitions that seem increasingly hard to fulfil.

"I wanted to pursue a doctorate-level education, work with the United Nations, become a diplomat, return to my country, and become president," she said. "It's now just a distant dream." * Some names and locations withheld due to security concerns

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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