Banned from speaking in public, Afghan women tell us their stories

Dozens of Afghan women studying abroad are terrified of being sent back to Afghanistan if the State Department cancels their U.S.-funded scholarships.

In this archive episode from September last year, Afghan women reveal what it's like to live under Taliban rule.

Sahar Ferat, researcher for Human Rights Watch within the Women’s Rights Division.

Shabana Basij-Rasikh, founder of the School of Leadership, Afghanistan (SOLA).

Mina, a former private school teacher living in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Hayat Alvi, associate professor in the National Security Affairs Department at the U.S. Naval War College.

Part I

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: Imagine for a moment, you're a young woman at home, spending some time with a companion. You're sharing stories, enjoying each other's company. And then you need to go out to do some errands. And as you approach the threshold of your door, you're saying to your companion, "Oh, that thing I was about to tell you. It's that --" But then you have to stop, cut off. You have to go silent.

But why? It's because you crossed a threshold into the outside world. And at that moment, when you crossed the threshold from your home to the street, your voice was taken away from you. Because you are a woman. You are a woman living in Afghanistan.

And by law, once you step outside, you are banned from speaking. You are not allowed to talk. Sing. Even laugh. You are nothing more than a ghost.

This is On Point. I'm Meghna Chakrabarti.

And that is the life that Mina is living right now in Kabul.

MINA: Afghan women have been removed from the list of being human, being ranked from the list of being a human and worse than animals. They themselves were burned from the very existence of a woman.

CHAKRABARTI: Mina is not her real name. We granted her anonymity because in speaking with us, she risks extreme danger and punishment from the Taliban.

MINA: They are thinking that I'm working with Americans. So my life is in danger. That's why I cannot go outside. Whenever I'm going outside, I'm covering my face, all the things, that no one should know me.

CHAKRABARTI: Last month, August 21, the Taliban's Justice Ministry instituted new so-called "vice and virtue laws."

MINA: When I heard the new laws. On that date, they will be completely dark for me.

CHAKRABARTI: The Taliban's 114-page manifesto decrees that Afghan women now cannot leave their homes unless they're covered from head to toe and unless they are joined by a male guardian. They cannot look at men that are not related to them by blood or marriage.

Women's voices are outlawed outside the home. They can't sing, read out loud, recite poetry, or even laugh. And if they do speak in private or at home, it must be so quiet that others cannot hear them.

MINA: Whenever I'm thinking about the loss and the news that they are saying, I feel hot. My body is getting hot. My face is getting hot. I feel that someone is taking his or her hand in my neck and they want to kill me. I feel this much bad. They just want to silence us and trample our faith.

CHAKRABARTI: Mina's life is a mere shadow of what it was even three years ago. Then, she was healthy, soon to be married, and had a job she loved working as a teacher at a private school in Kabul.

MINA: I had a good salary. I was taking 18,000 per month. I was giving half of them for my family expenses and half of them I was keeping for myself and taking my sisters outside, going to restaurants, going to some parks with my mom. We were enjoying our lives.

CHAKRABARTI: Mina was not alone. Millions of women in Afghanistan were doing well. Most girls were in school. More than a quarter of parliament was made up of women. Women were government ministers, judges, professors and pilots. But on August 15, 2021, when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, everything changed.

MINA: I lost my life. I lost my job. I lost my dreams. I lost my thinking that I'm a human. I lost everything. My hope. Everything is lost.

CHAKRABARTI: Under Taliban rule, women, including Mina, are banned from most jobs. They can't continue education after the sixth grade. They cannot leave their house without a male guardian. They cannot go to parks or play sports.

MINA: So on that time, I cried a lot. And when I entered our home, I told my dad, "Dad, why you are not raising your voice? You are a man. You should go outside and you should fight for your daughters. That we are uneducated."

So if a woman or if a girl is uneducated, so how they should, they should go forward with their lives? How they should grow up the children? Because they are uneducated. Their eyes are closed from everything, they are past.

So I feel so bad whenever I stay alone. I am just thinking that why I am born in Afghanistan? Why am I am a woman? Why did Taliban entered our country?

It's long time that I feel depression. I'm staying in one room and always crying that what is our crime? Why they are just telling us to do this, to do that? We are in their hand. We are like a doll and they are playing with us. Why they hate the woman that much?

CHAKRABARTI: According to the Women, Peace and Security Index, Afghanistan has the worst ranking on women's rights in the world. And that's even before these latest restrictions were put into place. The United Nations have called this situation in Afghanistan "gender apartheid" and "an unprecedented deterioration of women's rights." Mina says it's brought an unprecedented period of darkness to the lives, minds and souls of Afghan women.

MINA: All women are suffering from illness like depression. You know, it's long time that I feel depression. I'm staying in one room and always crying that what is our crime? Why they are just telling us to do this, to do that? We are in their hand. We are like a doll and they are playing with us. Why they hate the woman that much? So I didn't find anything. Always, always I feel that I face mental health issues, and I know 100%, 100% of Afghan women faces depression and health issues.

CHAKRABARTI: The Taliban's morality police will use force to ensure women do not speak in public. Officers can now take or damage people's property or detain people for up to three days if the laws are broken. And although these laws do not apply to men, the men can be punished if their wives and daughters don't follow them.

MINA: So, so this is our situation. And think what I'm suffering. I was born in 1989 and now if you see me, I look like a very old woman. Because every day I am thinking this, that what will happen next? I don't have any, any hope or dream for my future, for my kids and for my sisters.

CHAKRABARTI: Living under such repression is breaking down Mina's body.

Recently, She lost feeling in most of the fingers on her right hand. She cannot write or hold anything heavy, not even a bag. She is constantly in pain. Her doctor told her it was a result of the high stress and anxiety she's enduring. It's all breaking her heart, and it's destroying her love for her country.

MINA: If you ask a very small girl, they will say, "I want to leave Afghanistan." You know, they are forcing them to wear scarves. They are five years old, they are four years old, they are forcing them to wear hijab. They are forcing them to wear their scarves. So it is very difficult.

I just hate Afghanistan now. It is very bad because this is my homeland. Because of them, I say this thing. Because of Taliban, I'm saying, and I'm not afraid of them. I'm not afraid of them. I will rise my voice. If I can do something for all women, I will sacrifice myself for all women.

And I am hoping every day I am praying that when, when this time will finish? When it will finish? I cannot remember the good days that I have spent. I don't remember, I cannot imagine the good days will come.

PAIGE SUTHERLAND: Are you hopeful that things will change?

MINA: Yes, I am trusting Allah that maybe, maybe it will change one day. Yeah, maybe it will change one day. And I hope. I pray every day.

SUTHERLAND: And what gives you that hope?

MINA: In this situation, nothing. Nothing will give me. Nothing, nothing. There is nothing. When I'm sleeping, I hope that in the morning when I open my eyes, when I wake up, so everything should be okay. There should be freedom. No Taliban outside. Nothing. There should be nothing. But when I open my eyes, I will see of the same thing. The same thing. I'm just seeing the same thing. That's it. I'm continuing my life.

SUTHERLAND: Do you want to stay in Afghanistan?

MINA: No. No, no, no, no, no. Never. I don't want to stay anymore. I don't want to stay.

CHAKRABARTI: Mina lives in Kabul. She spoke with On Point producer Paige Sutherland.

And as we mentioned, we are not using Mina's real name because she faces considerable danger and punishment from the Taliban for risking speaking with us.

Part II

CHAKRABARTI: Today I am asking you to imagine what your life would be like if anytime you stepped outside of your own home, you were banned from speaking. That is the life that women in Afghanistan must live now. And today we're trying to understand how and why the Taliban instituted these new rules and what, if anything, the international community can do about it.

I'm joined now by Sahar Fetrat. She's a women's rights researcher for Human Rights Watch. She was born in Afghanistan and lived in Iran and Pakistan as a young refugee during the first Taliban regime. She returned to Afghanistan in 2006 with her family, but then left again in 2018 in order to pursue higher education. She joins us today from London, England.

Sahar, welcome.

SAHAR FETRAT: Thank you.

CHAKRABARTI: I was trying to rack my brain to think about if any other country in the world has the kinds of restrictions on women that Afghan women have to endure. And I couldn't think of any that have them to this degree. Can you?

FETRAT: Not really. No. There is the situation that Afghan women and girls are facing by the Taliban and the level of misogyny is unmatched in the world right now.

CHAKRABARTI: Because it's impossible for me to think of any other place where women are simply not allowed to speak, or even be seen, or must travel only with a male guardian. Can you describe to me, we heard Mina describe what her life is like, but has the Taliban been able to really frighten people into fully complying with these restrictions?

FETRAT: I mean, I just want to, this was, you has a powerful testimony from Mina where she, she described what it is about, that it is about this deep hate for women. And this deep hatred and hate has a name and it's called misogyny. And misogyny to the deepest level by the Taliban.

The Taliban, when they were in power in the past, for the five or a little more than five years that they were in power, they showed their true selves, their true face. The kind of erasure that we see that is happening in all aspects of women and girls life, it was happening in the past. They have done all these abuses in the past.

The way they have run their rule is through creating fear. And that's how they send message to the society. And I firmly believe that by limiting, by undermining, by abusing women and women's rights and women's bodies, they send societal and moral messages to society. And I think it works for them because it creates fear, and they work with the, you know, the Taliban's misogyny is working hand in hand with the already existing patriarchy that was in Afghanistan, which is absolutely limiting women's rights and women's life and freedom in every way possible.

And men are more submissive when it comes to rights and freedom because they look at the day to day rights and they feel like they have it. It's very short-sighted of them, but it's women who are not submissive. They're fighting back. They are sending their messages loud and clear, and they talk to the international community as well.

CHAKRABARTI: Yes.

FETRAT: And that's why they get more and more and day to day kind of restrictions and abuses.

CHAKRABARTI: Yes. And so we're going to talk more a little bit later in this hour about the bravery that Afghan women are showing right now. I'm glad you brought that up. But regarding the men, as I mentioned earlier, and you just touched on this, that they can be imprisoned, face arrest, torture, even if they criticize the rules or if, you know, "their" women step out of line.

Of course, women face even more dire consequences. Can you describe to me a little bit more, Sahar, about how much over the past few years life has changed for Afghan women? Because, I mean, not being allowed to speak when you leave your home is just perhaps the most concrete and visceral kind of repression women are feeling. But it has been so much more than that. Can you describe some of the other changes?

FETRAT: Yes, absolutely. You know, women in Afghanistan, like women in any other country, they have different values, different backgrounds, different, you know, so it's not like like a monolithic definition of who Afghan woman is. But overall, all Afghan women are experiencing various forms of patriarchy and misogyny.

And to the point that it comes to the Taliban, the Taliban give men, they also abuse men. Definitely, you're very right. They abuse men in different ways. But they give men more power to control women, which is what also patriarchy does as well. And this is the absolute control given to them. Men who protest that or men who don't want to follow those orders, they face the consequences. So it's double pressure on men who don't want to follow misogynistic rules.

But for women, it's been very suffocating. It is, when I talk to girls who are banned for more than three years from the school, from secondary school, they tell me that — We talk and they tell me how the situation is and they have been impacted so much that in the middle of the talk there is, the conversation, there is a silence and I hear them, I hear them crying. I hear them feeling really miserable. And I feel miserable. And there is always a very miserable silence because I don't know what to do and I don't know what we can promise.

And for girls, they don't see any future for themselves. They see because their mothers or aunts or previous generation, they had an experience of this. So they know that this time, it doesn't look like it will change like it did in the first rule of the Taliban. So it is absolutely suffocating for them.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah.

FETRAT: And just to add to this, there has been more than a hundred edicts and orders to ban women from different aspects of life, from society in so many different ways. And as you mentioned, from using their voice. And sexualizing and objectifying their voice to make it look like it's leading society towards sin. And that's also one tool to further and further erase women from society.

CHAKRABARTI: Sahar, can I just jump in here for a second? Because you said something important, because I'm absolutely certain that many people are wondering by what justification does the Taliban say women's voices are some kind of danger in public? Can you explain to me what the thinking is?

FETRAT: So, I mean, it's not surprising because for any other restrictions they have added, they don't have justification. The Taliban, in this case, you know, they have, as I said earlier, they have this deep hatred towards women and it shows up in different ways. And when they use the Sharia law, and for example, the term they used for women's voices is that it's called Awrat and Awrat in Islamic law, it signifies a man or a woman's or a person's intimate parts, which must be covered.

So you see how through this deep hate, they also like, um, objectify and sexualize women and they take their agency, their autonomy, their voice, their literal existence away by using different tools and different ways to keep them at home, to imprison them.

CHAKRABARTI: So the Taliban see even women's voices as some kind of dangerous, alluring siren song that could meet lead men towards sin. That's what you're saying?

FETRAT: Yes, and that is the way they, in an egregious way, they sexualize women, and they reduce them to toys, to things, to evilish or devilish kind of beings, not human being.

CHAKRABARTI: Well, Sahar, stand by here for just a moment because I want to explore a little bit more sort of the evolution, if I can call it that, of what has happened under Taliban rule. And in order to do that, we spoke with Hayat Alvi, associate professor at the U.S. Naval College. And in speaking with us, she stressed to us that she is not speaking on behalf of the college or the United States government, but in her own personal capacity.

And Alvi said we have to take a much longer view of the advances and retreat of women's rights in Afghanistan, and specifically beginning in 1979. Of course, Cold War, and the Soviets that year invaded Afghanistan, hoping to spread communism. Saudi Arabia, she says, saw this as an opportunity. An opportunity to spread Wahhabism, which is an ultra orthodox interpretation of Sunni Islam. And so what the Saudis did was set up Islamic seminaries along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

HAYAT ALVI: There were freedom fighters, or Mujahideen, which were trained in jihad against the Soviets. And part of that indoctrination involved physical separation between males and females, including family members, of the boys and men that later became the Taliban. And part of that indoctrination involved the mullahs, or teachers in those seminaries, teaching or indoctrinating the students, all males, that females are the source of temptation to sinful acts.

CHAKRABARTI: Now, Alvi says the story of Adam and Eve does exist in Islam. But the Islamic interpretation of that story does not see Eve as the original source of sin, as tempting Adam with the forbidden fruit of knowledge. But in these Islamic seminaries, Alvi says mullahs or teachers were spreading their own interpretations of Islam.

ALVI: Bear in mind that these mullahs are not trained, are not educated, and a good number of them are highly illiterate. So they really don't know the essence of Islamic teachings in mainstream Islam. So that's where it's passed on from an illiterate mullah to the Taliban in the indoctrination.

CHAKRABARTI: In the mullahs' version of Islam, women are to be feared because they may lead men to temptations, specifically sexual acts outside of marriage. And the students learning from the mullahs were being taught that the only way to avoid such temptation is to make women invisible.

ALVI: Because if she is rendered invisible, then the source of the temptation, the harmful thoughts — they refer to them as vices — those will be diminished or reduced or minimized or rendered invisible. But that's the main source of that threat or fear. It's not just the act, it's what could lead to it. The thoughts, the temptations, the provocations in the emotions and the minds, the distraction, the mental distraction, the sexual distraction. That's what the Taliban had thought about when they made those policies.

CHAKRABARTI: Now, it's important to note that, as we've said, in 1979, the Soviets invade Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia sees that as an opportunity to spread Wahhabism. But eventually, the Soviets had to withdraw from Afghanistan, because the Mujahideen kicked them out with the help of the United States. And that is what allowed the Taliban to take power.

So ever since 1979, these seminaries along the Afghan-Pakistan border were teaching the Taliban two things: How to be a jihadist and why they should fear women. And as Professor Alvi puts it, the fight against the Taliban in the long run in Afghanistan has always been about a battle over education.

ALVI: It became a race between the Western-supported schools being built in Afghanistan in a race against the Taliban schools being built, where they indoctrinated boys in the Taliban ideology. Guess who was winning? It was the Taliban. So it's a battle of education. It's the battle of schools. You learn at a very young age how to treat others. And whether or not to tolerate others' views and beliefs. And if the Taliban continue to win in that race of schools in the battle of education, then all is lost.

CHAKRABARTI: I want to bring Shabana Basij-Rasikh into the program now. She's founder of the School of Leadership Afghanistan, or SOLA. She was born and raised in Kabul.

Shabana, welcome back to On Point.

SHABANA BASIJ-RASIKH: Thank you, Meghna. It's nice to be back.

CHAKRABARTI: Now, I do want to speak with both you and Sahar about causes for hope or what the international community can do, and we will do that in a moment. But since you have dedicated your life, Shabana, to the education and mental liberation of Afghan women, I do first want to hear your thoughts about these new edicts that women in Afghanistan have to try to survive under.

BASIJ-RASIKH: Well, hearing Mina's account of what life is like under Afghanistan is absolutely heartbreaking and devastating. And as Sahar was talking about her conversations with Afghan girls and women today in Afghanistan and listening to what Mina was talking about, but also even without being able to pinpoint why she's hopeful, I couldn't help but to think back to what has been the consistent thread in all of this is the historic bravery of Afghan women.

They have never given up on themselves, on girls, and on a brighter future for all Afghans. And that was true when I was growing up under the Taliban regime. I was a beneficiary of that bravery of Afghan women. I was able to sneak into homes of Afghan women who were secretly educating girls at that time. And I see that today. In the past three years, we have seen girls and women being that consistent voice against Taliban's misogyny, calling out their un-Islamic decrees against women and not giving up on themselves and their rights and the rights of other women. So that is what keeps me and so many Afghan women who are fighting for a different Afghanistan, for a brighter Afghanistan going.

Part III

CHAKRABARTI: Both of you have pointed out that even under these extraordinarily repressive rules, I still can't quite get over the painful irony that Mina was actually able to speak to millions of Americans by taking the risk of talking with our producer, Paige, and she can't even say what she said on our radio show today, outside of her own home. That is bravery.

And many other Afghanistan women have been showing the same amount of bravery. They can't speak in public. So they have been taking to social media, taking to the internet to record themselves singing, reading, speaking. Basically showing that in protest. So, for example, here's a clip from a video from X, aka Twitter, that an Afghan woman posted of herself and others singing a poem in their native language while playing the tambourine.

(SINGING AND MUSIC)

CHAKRABARTI: Shabana, even in doing this, those women are taking a risk, right? And yet, so many women are carving out life. They're carving out a space for them to protest, to self-educate. Can you tell me a little bit more about how that relates to the work that SOLA has been doing recently?

BASIJ-RASIKH: Yes. For those who don't know where SOLA is right now, we are the only legally operating boarding school for Afghan girls currently in Rwanda. And I speak with women and girls very, very often. In fact, right now, we are in the midst of reviewing 3,500 application that we have received for 30 spots in our incoming class of students who will join us in Rwanda shortly.

And these are Afghan girls from all over the world. These are Afghan girls who understand that their education and their future is what matters. And that is going to be a future, not just for themselves, but for for Afghanistan. So this is, this is exactly what I was talking about.

Earlier, I heard a reference that the Taliban hate women. I don't believe that to be the case. I do believe that they fear women. I do believe that the long game to ending Taliban and that kind of ideology in Afghanistan is what women are doing. It's the women's movement. It is investment in girls' education. It is not giving up on the rights of girls. And inside Afghanistan, there are girls, women and there are male allies, who continue educating girls despite this incredible oppression that Taliban are imposing on the population.

CHAKRABARTI: I understand also that you have SOLA online as well, and that girls are able to access that in Afghanistan?

BASIJ-RASIKH: Correct. So since we arrived in Rwanda, there are three focus areas for us in looking at. We are working towards a future where we can go back to Afghanistan. When we were forced to leave in August of 2021, we were in the midst of building a campus in Kabul that would accommodate educating girls from all over Afghanistan. We had students from 28 of the 34 provinces in Afghanistan at that time.

And so when we arrived in Rwanda, we focused on what is next now that we are the only legally operating boarding school for Afghan girls? What can we do to fight Taliban in the long run? What can we do to make sure that we don't submit to Taliban's version of what Afghanistan should be like? And we landed in three areas knowing the demand that we receive in the form of application every year from Afghan girls.

The first one is we create permanence in Rwanda. We're now in the midst of building a campus that is not only going to be a boarding school, but a home for Afghan girls. In the summertime, SOLA is now home to a lot of Afghan girls who are studying in colleges and universities and schools across the world. And they cannot go home to Afghanistan to be with their families. And we're starting to welcome them to SOLA, to be with other Afghan girls, to be in a sisterhood of educated Afghan girls. And to be reminded that they do have a home and that they are working towards a future together. So that building that campus that home for us is really critical. And we're well underway with that.

The second thing is, as I mentioned, we can't bring the thousands of girls who sent us an application, can very painfully only take a handful of them to bring them to SOLA in Rwanda. So we, how do we bring SOLA to them? Less than six months ago, at the end of March 2024, we launched, SOLA X, a WhatsAp-based online academy. And our goal for first year was to reach 10,000 learners on our platform. Less than six months, we have more than 12,000 learners from every single province inside Afghanistan, all 34 and across 40 different countries.

This is curriculum that is geared towards Afghan girls. At the moment we have English classes on the platform and a course that we have developed in partnership with National Geographic on storytelling for impact. Because we do believe that the stories and the voices of Afghan girls matter, that they are the agents who can document history for themselves and for Afghanistan.

And we are weeks away from launching a seventh grade Afghan curriculum in Dari and Pashto. And how that works is it's very basic. It's free for every user. All an Afghan girl needs to have is access to a basic smartphone and the ability to be able to text via WhatsApp. The SOLA X chatbot speaks in three languages, in Dari, Pashto and English. And the lessons are delivered in 30 minute segments and it's asynchronous. A family who has one basic smartphone, but let's say five children, they can use five different service numbers for SOLA X, to enroll all of them in the classes.

And we are rolling out, seventh through 12th grade because we know that girls in Afghanistan today, once they reach sixth grade, they are told that's the end of their education. So we're picking up from seventh through 12th grade.

CHAKRABARTI: It's remarkable, truly remarkable work that SOLA is doing, Shabana. I only pray that the Taliban don't take those phones away. But I keep coming back to the fact that this isn't just a sudden happening, right? I mean, we are talking about a very long history of, as I said, the advance and retreat of women's rights in Afghanistan.

And I mean, there are women in Afghanistan alive today who remember how prior to 1979, Afghanistan was an incredibly cosmopolitan place. Kabul was incredibly modern. But women alive there today remember that. And so I keep thinking about, in a sense, the complicity of the international community, including the United States. As I mentioned before, the support of the Mujahideen simply as an anti-communist tool, right, to kick the Soviets out, which then led to the Taliban, which, of course, washed back on the United States in the form of 9/11.

And so therefore, we must ask — and Sahar, I'm going to turn to you on this one — what can the international community do? And this is a question that Mina, when we spoke with her really, really emphasized to us. And I just want to let her, once again, have her say.

MINA: This is something that I'm telling you from my heart. Now I'm about to cry. I'm about to yell that no one is listening our voice. Why? Where are the human rights? Why they are not doing something for us? Why they are not helping the girls? Why they are not helping the woman? We are suffering a very bad situation, very bad situation. People in foreign countries, they are thinking that everything is okay. They are saying that no bomb blasts and no fighting, nothing. It is worse than before.

CHAKRABARTI: So Sahar, you have written for Human Rights Watch that what the Taliban are doing to women in Afghanistan is a crime against humanity, a crime of gender persecution. And that in and of itself could give the international community tools to somehow bring the Taliban to account.

FETRAT: Yes, Meghna. Before that, I just wanted to reflect on what Mina said, and as you said as well, that Afghanistan is in this mess right now and not by itself alone. And there are many stakeholders, many people, many countries responsible for this. And to trying to get Afghanistan out of the situation shouldn't be only on the backs and shoulders of Afghan women and girls.

That's why we need to look at how throughout these new restrictions and all these laws that could be, you know, crimes against humanity of gender persecution, they did not came out of a vacuum. They didn't just appear like that. In the past three years, I think the Taliban tested the waters and over time they got more and more, find more audacity and more emboldened to abuse women and girls in ways that are even hard to imagine. And for that, I think what the international community could do is a few suggestions that I will share with you.

Government leaders should demand that Afghan women should be invited to all international meetings regarding Afghanistan and Afghanistan's future. And we can see that Doha 3 where Afghan women were not invited to appease the Taliban was a disaster and it actually in many ways emboldened the Taliban to further marginalize Afghan women and came up with their gazette and their new laws. I believe it's very much interconnected with that.

CHAKRABARTI: So then you also talk about that there is international law that you think the international criminal court could go to or the international court of justice.

FETRAT: Yes, they're both options. Governments can work together to use the international law and institutions to pressure the Taliban. And as you mentioned, they can support the international criminal courts' persecution of the Taliban leaders for committing the crime against humanity of gender persecution. But also, which is the news that we have from this week, September 25, we hear it about the possibility of taking a case against the Taliban for failing to abide the UN Convention on Women's Rights, which is CEDAW, to the International Court of Justice. Canada, Australia, Germany, and Netherlands. are actually now, they announced that they're taking the Taliban to ICJ over the crime of gender discrimination.

This is a positive move and very important. At the same time, the countries can seriously consider including gender apartheid as a crime against humanity in the proposed crimes against humanity treaty. And we can see that there is already demand and request from Afghan women. There is an important campaign ongoing about the recognition of gender apartheid. So countries could do much more to support Afghan women and taking the Taliban to international courts for their crimes.

CHAKRABARTI: So, Shabana, then, let me turn to you, because the international community, aka through diplomacy or something like the ICC, could act. But countries only act when pushed by their own people. So I'm wondering if you think that there's anything that even individuals listening today could do?

BASIJ-RASIKH: Yeah. Well, I do want to add one more idea or recommendation to what Sahar said, which I think is really critical. And that is looking at what will work, the pressure points that will work on groups like Taliban is really appealing to the Muslim majority countries and nations to condemn Taliban's un-Islamic decrees and ruling, that is what they cannot avoid.

We talked earlier about Saudi Arabia's efforts and in how that contributed to the creation of Taliban. We can go back to actors as powerful and as influential as the Saudi Arabia and other Muslim majority countries, Qatar, UAE, Jordan, et cetera, and ask them, et cetera, consistently demanding not just the governments, but civil society organizations and leaders in those countries, women leaders in particular to raise their voices.

And then, you know, outside of that coming to individuals, I do believe the most powerful actors in any society are people who are listening right now. And we can't just feel hopeless for and feel sad for people in Afghanistan. What we do at SOLA, for instance, shouldn't be just celebrated as this extraordinary effort. It is, but it shouldn't be. Educating girls should be the most ordinary. And how do we get to that place? We cannot look away. We have already seen what happens when we have looked away from what's happening in Afghanistan in the past.

So we cannot. I look at this not as a situation that should disturb girls and women in Afghanistan, but should disturb every human being. We should not, as women in Afghanistan, in 2024 have an example anywhere in the world for little girls today to say you are lucky you're going to school. Guess what? Girls in Afghanistan are not allowed to go to school. That should never be said to any child.