In August 2021, the Afghan journalist Zahra Joya was in Kabul, where she and her family lived.
Over the previous 10 days, Joya had witnessed what would have once seemed impossible: Taliban militants advancing through Afghanistan at astonishing speed, taking control of her country province by province.
It was just four months after the US and UK had announced they would be withdrawing their troops, and two decades of fragile democracy was being swept away.
Joya was in her office when she got the call that Taliban militants were on the corner of her street. Like millions of women across Afghanistan, she could remember what it was like to live under the Taliban. She knew what was coming and escaped. Five years on, everything she had been afraid of has come true.
Today from the UK Joya still runs the Afghan women’s media company she set up, secretly sending out reporters across Afghanistan who risk their lives to tell the stories of the country’s women. In voice notes, some of them tell Annie Kelly how their lives have been transformed: imprisoned in their own homes, unable to leave without male guardians; barred from jobs and schooling; their rights curtailed so heavily they can be forced into marriage at nine years old, or refused a divorce from violent husbands.
Meanwhile, the UK and other countries are taking steps to normalise relationships with Afghanistan and send back refugees who have escaped the Taliban’s grip.
Extracted and lightly reformatted for readability. · Source: en