By Fawzia Rezayee*
Fawzia Rezayee’s life fell apart when the former government fell. She lost her job leading adult education for the Afghanistan National Police in Kabul. With no salary, she couldn’t continue studying pharmacy at a private university. Nor could her sister, whose education was paid for by Fawzia*. Even before the Taliban returned, Fawzia was suffering financially as her employer hadn’t paid her salary for the last three months of the old government.
Fawzia remembers well that black Sunday in August 2021. Like every other day, she was preparing to go to work until her mother called to inform her that the Taliban had taken over the city. She did not believe her mother, thinking it was a joke. When her mother insisted that she doesn’t leave her room that day, Fawzia laughed, saying, “Impossible! How can a bunch of bike-rider Taliban soldiers beat a well-equipped and trained army and seize power in the country?”
But it was true. Kabul was handed over to the Taliban overnight. Fawzia was in shock. During the next month, she would still rise early and get dressed for work only to remember that the Taliban were in charge. Finally, she hid her uniform.
She didn’t know what to do. She wanted to return home to her mother but feared she would be exposed and handed over to the Taliban. Like other female police officers, Fawzia is being chased by the Taliban. She changed her residence twice, using a new identity. During those lonely months, the only thing that comforted her was reading books.
A month after the Taliban takeover, news of their house-to-house searches spread in Fawzia’s neighbourhood. She was filled with fear and emptied of hope. Before the Taliban came to her home, she took photos of her important documents and burned everything that proved she had been a police officer. She remembers a neighbour asking her why she was crying. After telling her that she had burned her dreams along with her uniform and documents, they wept together.
Fawzia thought she’d disappear when the Taliban started searching their area, but her neighbour stopped her. “I live here alone,” she told Fawzia. “What would I tell them if they ask me whose room this is? This would make things complicated. Stay! If they want to kill, they would kill us both, and if they spare us, we both live.”
The Taliban soldiers entered her house with their muddy boots. Despite being a trained military officer, she just stood at a corner defenseless, watching the Taliban assaulting her privacy. As a woman trained to defend her country, she couldn’t even defend her own house. She remembers how she silently watched the Taliban turn everything upside down in her room, even searching between the books. Fawzia didn’t even breathe loudly until everywhere was searched thoroughly, lest the Taliban discover her identity and thus jeopardize her life and that of her kind neighbour.
Months later, the Taliban announced that they would recruit women into the military. Nasrin*, one of Fawzia’s former colleagues, called her and suggested that they go together to the Ministry of the Interior. Nasrin believed that the Taliban had come to understand that they needed women forces. She was also desperate, telling Fawzia that she couldn’t afford to buy bread for her children.
Fawzia was tempted by the idea of once more being employed but didn’t trust the Taliban. It was the Taliban who deprived women of their rights to movement, education, and entertainment. How could the Taliban be trusted?
At the same time, Fawzia also realized that she couldn’t survive much longer without any income. So, she accepted the idea of working with the Taliban.
Wearing burqas, Nasrin and Fawzia nervously approached the Ministry of the Interior. At the first gate, Nasrin showed her application. The illiterate soldier who could not read, asked Nasrin to read the document, while a group of fellow Taliban militants surrounded the two women. Their response was to issue a direct threat: “Go back to your home. Had our leaders not forbidden us, instead of a job, we would shoot you in the head with these guns!”
Fawzia and Nasrin quickly leave, too afraid to even look back. That day, Fawzia again moved her residence that exact day, lest the Taliban chased her. Desperate, depressed, and hopeless, Fawzia spends her days and nights living in the darkest and narrowest streets of Kabul.
*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees.
