“When the Taliban came, they even took our right to breathe”

To the Taliban, women are nothing but objects to be used, misused and discarded. In their eyes, we have no value. They believe women exist solely to make men happy and bear children. A woman has no right to protest, no right to say even a single word against this oppression.

When we are born, we come into this world with inherent rights that no one should be able to take away from us. Like, the right to breath, right? Yet, when the Taliban came to power, they wanted to strip us of even this fundamental right. They said: Don’t breathe anymore. They silenced us, locked us away, and suffocated our spirits. We were confined to our homes, forbidden from going to the park, school, or even a class. Our faces had to be covered, our clothes had to be black. We could never step outside without a male relative. The very place that should offer us safety, our home, became a prison.

I, like many others of my generation, had dreams. Then the Taliban came, and they stole even that slim hope. I will never forget the day they returned to power. I woke up, and saw the news. I was in shock. I stayed home and watched the news, still unable to believe what was happening. The next day, I ventured out to see for myself. When I saw them on the streets, with their long hair and guns, I cried. Time felt frozen. I felt like I had fallen from a great height and shattered into pieces. I felt hopeless. Until the day we took the streets. That day I had a spark of strength. It was a reminder that I was somebody.

My greatest fear is that the Taliban will remain in power indefinitely. My generation went to school and studied in the university. We had dreams. I am worried about what will happen If they stay. In Afghanistan, poems, singing, dancing, open hair, colourful clothes, painted nails, these are all forbidden for girls. I worry that we will never again see a girl wearing a red dress, walking with her hair loose, smiling, happy. They won’t know how it feels to be given a flower, to feel love and affection, life. There won’t be a girl left to pursue her own goals in life, or even simply buy a jacket with a flower print. The next generation of girls, now 10-15 years old, will grow up without even the memory of hope.

I dream of returning to my home country one day to live there in peace. For the girls of Afghanistan, those who are now crying when they look at their school uniforms, I dream of a world where school doors would open again for them.

I did everything to help those girls when I was there. I was teaching girls in secret, smuggling them pens and books. In the end I was even forced to leave my country because of this. I told them: “Don’t give up. Continue studying. Never stop loving the colours of life, the flowers, your beauty, and find something to give you hope again.”

To my fellow girls and women, I now say again: “Hope is the one thing they cannot take from you. Hold on to it. It will keep you alive. The dark days will end. Bright days will come. The sun will rise again. The stars will shine, and we will be stronger. We, women, will succeed. No one has the power to break us.”

The greatest strength of Afghan women back home lies in their endurance, in their ability to wait for the world to notice and to raise its voice in support of their struggle.

We women are strong. We have endured the unendurable and survived the unimaginable. Our greatest power is that we believe that every dark night is followed by a bright day. The sky will be full of stars again. The next morning will come and the sun will rise. We still believe!

Setera*