What life is like for women under Taliban rule

Published February 7, 2023 at 7:00 AM PST

Women and teachers demonstrate inside a private school to demand their rights and equal education for women and girls, during a gathering for National Teachers Day, at a private school in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Oct. 5, 2021. (Ahmad Halabisaz/AP)

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It’s been a year and a half since the negotiated withdrawal of U.S. troops allowed the Taliban to fully take over Afghanistan again.

The group made promises to the international community that it would respect women’s rights.

Those promises have been broken.

“What will be our future? For how many years day they will be here? Maybe forever. Maybe for five years. Two years? If it is for one year more … I cannot survive.”

Today, On Point: Life for the women of Afghanistan today.

Guests

Mina, language teacher.

Najia Naseem, executive director of the NGO Women for Afghan Women (WAW). (@WAWHumanRights)

Rangina Hamidi, first female Minister of Education for Afghanistan. She officially lost her position on August 15th, the day Kabul fell. Professor at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University, where she teaches global women’s leadership.

Interview Highlights

On life in Afghanistan today

Mina: “I’m not able to go outside because the critical situation that I have, that I am suffering, as a teacher. That I was working in an international school and now I’m hiding in my home, and I cannot go outside. So I will say that the other women, they can go outside. When they are going outside, they are covering their faces. The situation, the woman’s situation under the control of Taliban is severely bad. Prohibits us from education, living freely, working and other social activities. We can neither educate ourselves nor can live the way we want. We just think that we are in a bad situation. So this is our situation that we are living in our own country.”

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.