‘I will marry four of you in one day’: Afghan women relate stories of horror as Taliban take over

Terrifying stories of mistreatment of women in Afghanistan are being discussed on social media and are also being reported by news outlets ever since the Taliban started gaining control of Afghanistan two months ago.

“When I heard that the Taliban had reached Kabul, I felt I was going to be a slave. They can play with my life any way they want.”

A female university student in Afghanistan while talking to The Guardian expressed her feelings of fear and hopelessness after the Taliban took over Afghanistan.

“Early on Sunday morning I was heading to university for a class when a group of women came running out from the women’s dormitory. I asked what had happened and one of them told me the police were evacuating them because the Taliban had arrived in Kabul, and they will beat women who do not have a burqa,” she said while sharing her experience on the day the Taliban entered Kabul.

“We all wanted to get home, but we couldn’t use public transport. The drivers would not let us in their cars because they did not want to take responsibility for transporting a woman. It was even worse for the women from the dormitory, who are from outside Kabul and were scared and confused about where they should go.” she added.

The men standing outside the university said: “Go and put on your chadari [burqa],” One called out, “It is your last days of being out on the streets.” Another said, “I will marry four of you in one day.”

The Afghan student further shared, “I loved doing my nails. Today, as I was on my way home, I glanced at the beauty salon where I used to go for manicures. The shop front, which had been decorated with beautiful pictures of girls, had been whitewashed overnight.”

“Now it looks like I have to burn everything I achieved in 24 years of my life. Having any ID card or awards from the American University is risky now; even if we keep them, we are not able to use them. There are no jobs for us in Afghanistan.”

“Then today, when I heard that the Taliban had reached Kabul, I felt I was going to be a slave. They can play with my life any way they want.”

“Or identity is being destroyed and nothing has been done by us to deserve this.”

Women, specially female journalists are fearing for their life after the recent developments in the country.

“For many years, I worked as a journalist … to raise the voice of Afghans, especially Afghan women, but now our identity is being destroyed and nothing has been done by us to deserve this,” Aaisha a prominent news anchor and political talk show host, said while speaking to The Guardian.

“In the last 24 hours, our lives have changed and we have been confined to our homes, and death threatens us at every moment.”

The homes of two female journalists were visited by Taliban fighters on Sunday, leaving both women “severely shaken psychologically,” CNN has reported.

Taliban fighters are ‘going door-to-door and forcibly marrying girls as young as 12 and forcing them into sex slavery as they seize vast swathes of the Afghanistan from government forces,’ reported the Daily Mail on August 13.

However, Taliban’s spokesperson Suhail Shaheen has refuted the claims.

All those claims that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan forces people to marry their young girls to Mujahideen are totally wrong. It is a poisonous propaganda.

— Suhail Shaheen. محمد سهیل شاهین (@suhailshaheen1) August 15, 2021