Hungry, hunted, terrified: unending plight of the Afghan women who served in military and police

(absolutely heartbreaking)

Hungry, hunted, terrified: unending plight of the Afghan women who served in military and police

Two years since the Taliban seized power, thousands of female fugitives still live in fear and poverty, with a target on their backs


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Since the Taliban captured Kabul in August 2021, female former army and police officers are afraid to leave their homes and many experience mental illness. Photograph: Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Zahra Joya and Rukhshana Media reporters
Mon 14 Aug 2023 01.00 EDT
Last modified on Mon 14 Aug 2023 01.10 EDT

Shima Forugh* was in 10th grade at school when she decided she would join the Afghan army. It had been taboo in Afghanistan’s patriarchal society for women to join the military, but hundreds of women like Forugh broke through this restriction. When she was 21, she joined the 207th Zafar army corps in Herat. Her father, who was also a member of the Afghan army, and mother both supported her decision to sign up. Forugh was in military training when her father was killed in 2017 by a Taliban explosive device on his way to Helmand province. She had to take care of her two sisters, brother and mother. She never imagined that the Taliban would one day regain power in Afghanistan. Its forces took control of the capital, Kabul, on 15 August 2021, and Forugh was on a fortnight’s leave when it was reported that Herat province had fallen.

Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban supreme leader, announced a general amnesty after the takeover, but, according to Forugh, those who worked in the former military forces were not included. In the first days of Taliban rule, Alia Azizi, former head of the women’s prison in Herat province, disappeared after she was called to the office by the authorities. An investigation by the New York Times reported that in the first six months of Taliban rule, about 500 soldiers and government employees of the previous Afghan regime were killed by the Taliban. “Even those who surrendered were shot dead or followed,” says Forugh. “When the Taliban tried to go door to door, I burned my documents. I left the house and was hiding.”

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Female Afghan soldiers on a military exercise on the outskirts of Kabul in 2017. Many of them are still being hunted down by the Taliban. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

. . . .


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An Afghan woman walks among Taliban soldiers at a checkpoint in central Kabul, July 2023.
Taliban soldiers man a checkpoint in central Kabul, July 2023. Fatima* says she wears a burqa if she goes out to avoid being recognised. Photograph: Ali Khara/Reuters

. . . .

“I miss my children very much, especially my daughter, who is so young,” she says. “Sometimes, when I feel bad, I make a video call to their uncle and talk to them.”

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/aug/14/hungry-hunted-terrified-unending-plight-of-the-afghan-women-who-served-in-military-and-police