Five Years Later: Girls Who Say They Have Lost Their Youth and Future

Image: Wakil KOHSAR / AFP

Many books still remain in a corner of her room. Some of them may have last been opened when she thought the closure of universities was temporary and that she would soon return to her classroom.

Zarghona looks towards the books and recalls memories of going to class, memories that are now nearly four years old.

On 20 December 2022, the Taliban banned girls from studying at universities in Afghanistan. Students who had been working towards obtaining degrees, finding jobs and building their futures were suddenly prevented from attending university.

Now, after the fifth anniversary of the Taliban’s return to power, some of these girls tell Zan News that during this period they have not only lost their education, but also feel that their youth, employment opportunities and part of their hope for the future have been taken from them.

Zarghona, a resident of Kabul, is one of them. She was a student at the Faculty of Economics at Kabul University.

She says she had plans for her future and imagined that her life would take a different direction after graduation. But following the Taliban’s decree, her studies were left unfinished.

Zarghona says that waiting to return to the classroom gradually turned into hopelessness.

She says: “After years of waiting, I gradually lost hope, and now I am struggling with mental health problems. My youth has passed, and my university education remains unfinished.”

She compares her life these days to that of a bird in a cage.

“Day and night, like a bird in a cage, I am trapped in the cage and prison created by Taliban laws. I feel suffocated every moment.”

Zarghona says she takes antidepressants to cope with her mental health condition, but feels that she no longer has the strength and endurance she once had.

“I take antidepressants, but I have still lost my strength and ability to cope. Even these damned tablets cannot control this situation.”

For her, the passage of time has not meant getting closer to a goal. On the contrary, the more time has passed, the further she has moved from the life she had imagined for herself.

In Kunduz, Najia, a 26-year-old woman, has a similar story.

She speaks about the years when war, insecurity and repeated Taliban attacks were part of life for people in the province. But according to her, after the change of government, another problem began, one that directly targeted her educational future and that of thousands of Afghan girls.

Najia says: “May God darken the Taliban’s lives for ruining our future.”

She also recalls the days of the republic: “Day and night, we had no peace from them during the republic because they were fighting and attacking our province every day.”

But what happened after the Taliban returned was, for her, another form of deprivation.

“Then, when the misogynistic Taliban came to power, they attacked our education and barred us from studying.”

Najia had imagined a future in which she would become a psychologist, a profession she says she could have pursued through university education.

Now, all that remains of that future is one short sentence:

“Otherwise, I would be a psychologist by now.”

In Herat, Rahila once studied medicine at the city’s public university. She is from Ghor province and says that choosing medicine was not merely a personal decision.

She wanted to serve people after graduation who, she says, need female doctors.

Rahila says: “I wanted to become a doctor. There are few female doctors in Afghanistan in general, and especially in our province.”

But this path, like that of many other girls, was also stopped halfway.

“But the Taliban took this dream from me and destroyed it.”

Now, instead of working in a hospital treating patients, Rahila herself receives treatment and medication from doctors for her mental health problems.

She says: “While I wanted to save others from illness and treat them, I have now become ill myself because of excessive worry and stress. I see a psychologist and take antidepressants.”

In Kandahar, Sabrina also speaks of a future that is no longer as clear to her as it once was.

She says she wanted to study, but being deprived of education has weakened her hope.

“I wanted to study and continue my education. I had just started preparing for the university entrance exam, but the Taliban took the entrance exam and university away from us, and now there is no hope in life.”

Sabrina speaks about pressures that, according to her, sometimes lead to thoughts of harming herself.

She says: “Sometimes bad thoughts come into my mind and I want to harm myself and end my life, meaning to kill myself, because I am a girl and I do not even have the right to choose. This is the Taliban’s view of me as a girl and of other girls and women.”

Four accounts from four parts of Afghanistan, Kabul, Kunduz, Ghor and Kandahar. Their experiences are different, but they all share one thing: universities they are no longer allowed to enter.

For these girls, the ban on education does not simply mean being unable to read a few books or sit a few exams. They speak of a future they had worked towards for years, of the jobs they wanted to have and of the lives they imagined would begin after graduating from university.

Five years have now passed since the Taliban returned to power, and nearly four years have passed since girls were banned from universities.

During this period, girls who once called themselves students have spent part of their lives waiting for university gates to reopen.

Zarghona still wants to finish her studies, Najia still thinks about becoming a psychologist, Rahila still dreams of becoming a doctor and Sabrina, despite all the hopelessness she describes, still remembers the days when she wanted to enter university.

But since issuing the decree suspending women’s university education, the Taliban have not announced any specific date for the return of thousands of female students to universities.