Last August 28, 2021, people around the world took to the streets of their cities, shouting: “Afghan women exist. Together we stand! In our hands and on the windows of our houses, there is a blue cloth, like the one that hides them. We will repeat the march every Saturday, as long as necessary. Let’s wear from now on, every day, a piece of blue cloth to say [to Afghan women]: We are with you, we see you, we hear you. Together, let’s give visibility to these actions, let’s give voice to those who do not have one.” #AfghanWomenExist #TogetherWeStand #AfghanistanIsCalling. These hashtags have recently been making the rounds on social media.

Kabul, August 2021. After the withdrawal of Western forces from Afghanistan, the Taliban militias have regained control of the country. In less than a week, they conquered a dozen provincial capitals. On August 15, they entered Kabul.

With their return, there is fear – above all – for the future, for the rights and lives of women.

In a video, an Afghan girl cries for her future: “Nobody cares about us just because we were born here. We will disappear from history.” And while the Taliban spokesman held the first press conference after seizing power, a group of Afghan women holding placards demonstrated in defense of women’s rights in front of the presidential palace demanding recognition of their role in public life. “Afghan women exist” read one of the signs in English.

Many Afghan women pour out their despair on social media. There is Shamsia, the girl who in tears prepares to “die slowly,” and also Afghan photographer Rada Akbar who writes on Twitter: “Cities collapse, human bodies collapse, history and the future collapse, life and beauty collapse, our world collapses. Please, someone stop all this.”

“Hey, world! Can you hear us?” writes another woman. Every woman in Afghanistan wonders what will become of her future and her life.

The strength of women

Since 2001, with the fall of the Taliban, women have slowly and painstakingly taken back their rights. Since July 2021, when the Taliban started taking over several regions and cities in the country, the fear of seeing it all taken away has returned.

“The Taliban cannot take away from Afghan women what they have become over the past 20 years: their education, their drive to work, the sense of freedom” – says Lynsey Addario, a photojournalist and writer. Afghan women are full of energy, hope, dreams, strength, and perseverance that they have shown to have even under Taliban control. The same strength is shown these days by many women in Kabul: “I’m not afraid of the Taliban – says one of them. We will not go back to that dark age. I don’t care if they identify me, if they kill me. I am not afraid of them. This is my land, this is my home.” But the distressing fear for Afghan girls and women remains.

The young men and women of the Economy of Francesco immediately wanted to stand beside Afghan women by launching the EoF Global March on Saturday, August 28, to tell them: “We are with you, we will not leave you alone, we will fight alongside you.” Today we look for their social profiles, more images of protests in the streets of Kabul. All (or almost all) have been obscured, or have disappeared.

The present of Afghan women

“Last week, I was a reporter. Today I cannot write with my name, say who I am or where I am. My life has been destroyed in a few days,” a woman tells The Guardian newspaper. “I am not safe because I am a 22-year-old woman, and I know that the Taliban are forcing families to give their daughters in marriage to fighters. And I am also not safe because I am a journalist; I know that the Taliban will come after me and all my colleagues.”

The mothers, who have already lived under the Taliban regime, are asking their daughters to wear the burqa,[1] to avoid attracting attention, but not without resistance. “We don’t have burqas in the house, and I’m not going to get one,” says a 26-year-old university student in Kabul. According to the BBC, in the areas captured by the Taliban, women are already not allowed to leave the house without a male companion and many female workers will be replaced by men.

Emblematic are the stories of the athletes of the Afghan National Cycling Team, in great difficulty for being sportswomen and women cyclists, who had to leave Afghanistan for their safety, and that of the five Afghan girls of the robotics team – Afghan Dreamers – who landed in Mexico.

In the city of Kandahar, some health clinics run by women have been closed, advertisements with models have been canceled from shop windows and beauty centers. Some female students were thrown out of a supermarket because they were not accompanied by a man, and others because they were not wearing the burqa. Testimonies of house-to-house searches by groups of Taliban, of violence and killings, are arriving. Women fearfully await the moment when their turn comes.

We cannot remain indifferent. This is not the world we want.

Economy of Francesco

[1] A long garment that covers the whole head and body, and is worn in public by some women in Islamic countries