By Sana Atef* and Mahtab Safi*
It was on the third day of her daughter’s visit that Mahgul*, 54, realized they needed to take her to the hospital, as her stomach ache was worsening. So Mahgul, who lives in the Damaan district of Kandahar, set out with her daughter, Rana, and her 4-year-old grandson. It was a hot 15-minute walk to the taxi station.
Once there, they couldn’t find a taxi driver willing to take them to the hospital. Finally, one said he’d take them but they had to ride in his vehicle’s trunk. Mahgul, her daughter, and her grandson climbed on board and sat next to a 10-kilogram gas cylinder. A few minutes later, the driver stopped to pick up three more women, who also crammed into the small space, with the weight of the trunk’s hood resting on their backs. “We struggled to breathe, our clothes, even my burqa, were soaked in sweat from the intense heat. My daughter clung to the gas cylinder, groaning in pain,” Mahgul recounts to Zan Times.
After 90 minutes, they reached the hospital. While Rana was treated, Mahgul realized she was having a skin reaction as well as heat burns due to travelling for so long in such a confined space in the extreme summer heat of Kandahar. “It was extremely hot inside the trunk. We were wearing black hijabs and chadors. The air was completely trapped. My entire body was soaked with sweat, and I felt like I was burning,” she explains.
Mahgul, her daughter, and grandson couldn’t sit inside the passenger compartment of the taxi because of an edict by the Taliban. In April 2023, the Taliban verbally instructed the Taxi Drivers’ Union in Kandahar city that drivers were not allowed to have any woman ride in the main cabin of their vehicles. Instead, the Taliban demanded that women needing a taxi had to sit precariously in a vehicle’s trunk, where men inside the taxi could not see them. Furthermore, if women traveling with a mahram (a close male relative) want to sit inside, they must pay the fares for all passenger seats inside a taxi. If they didn’t pay for all the seats inside the main cabin, then only the mahram can sit in there, along with the taxi driver and other male passengers, while the woman is forced to ride in the toolbox.
In addition, the Taliban issued an order in December 2021 that taxi drivers and passenger vehicles should not transport women for distances of more than 45 miles (72 kilometres) without the female being accompanied by a guardian. Later, that rule was applied to shorter distances.
To see how women are being affected by Taliban rules on travel, Zan Times interviewed 21 women and girls in six provinces (Kandahar, Sar-e Pol, Jowzjan, Ghor, Baghlan, and Herat) who told of the severe mistreatment they have experienced by the Taliban during journeys in public. At least 11 said that they were stopped by the Taliban when trying to travel without a male guardian or in the main compartment of a taxi, and forced to either continue their journeys by foot or return to their homes. The women and girls told Zan Times that such restrictive and demeaning policies and actions were degrading and made them feel like trafficked goods. They also described how such restrictions by the Taliban stripped them of their safety during outings.
In Kandahar, taxi drivers charge women 10 afghani to ride in the trunk, and, to maximize their earnings, they sometimes crowd up to seven women inside. The separation of the sexes applies even when women opt for a rickshaw ride. While men can ride in passenger rickshaws, which have seats and covers and are designed for human transport, women are forced to take cargo rickshaws, which are open-topped and designed for goods or livestock. Like taxi drivers in Kandahar, cargo rickshaw drivers charge women 10 afghani for longer routes, though shorter routes can cost five afghani per woman.
Though cargo rickshaws can be rough rides, many women have no choice but to use them. Zainab*, a 15-year-old resident of Kandahar city, was forced to use a cargo rickshaw with her sister-in-law, who was ill and needed to go to the hospital. “On many days, I’d rather walk for hours than get on a cargo rickshaw. When I sit on it, I feel ashamed; it’s disheartening to be transported like sheep,” she says.
Women who sit in passenger seats in taxis or rickshaws, or who leave their homes without a mahram know that the Taliban could arrest them if they are caught. In November 2022, Basira* and four colleagues (two men and two women) used transportation provided by their office to go to a bank in the Almas district of Sar-e Pol province to receive their salaries. Basira got her salary first, and returned to the vehicle to wait for her colleagues. She was alone with their driver, a middle-aged man, when three armed Taliban approached and began interrogating them. When they realized the male driver had no family relationship with Basira, the militants took them to their command post. Basira says the Taliban treated them very badly: “They said we must be in a relationship or something. They took our mobile phones and checked them. No matter how often we insisted we were not in a relationship, they didn’t believe us and insulted us even more.”
The Taliban contacted Basira’s father, who had to travel from Jowzjan province to get his daughter out of custody. The Taliban released Basira only on a guarantee from her father and her elder brother that she would never again ride in a car with a man who isn’t a guardian. Her traditional father was “deeply upset and disappointed,” she recounts, as “it’s considered a major disgrace.” Furthermore, the Taliban hold male family members responsible if women are deemed to break any Taliban rules. This tactic, designed to limit women’s presence and activities in society, has caused disputes among family members and, in many cases, has led to domestic violence. “After my release from detention, I was barely allowed to leave the house without a guardian because my father wouldn’t permit it,” Basira tells Zan Times. “Now, I feel imprisoned in my own home.”
Some women are determined to fight against this discrimination and will not succumb to the Taliban’s merciless rules. Sitara*, a 24-year-old in Ghor province who couldn’t complete her fourth year of university in law and political science due to Taliban ban on women’s education, says that she gets upset when she sees the Taliban treating women like cattle or commodities, and tries to resist their demeaning behaviour and rules. “I want to fight this situation. Once when I saw a taxi driver seating women in the trunk, I made them sit in the passenger seat and told them not to get off, and I paid their fare,” she says to Zan Times.
Sitara also recounts an incident from last year when she was on her way to visit a sick relative in a hospital when Taliban members stopped her vehicle. Though a Taliban fighter ordered her to step out of the car, she ignored him and continued to sit on the passenger seat. The fighter, angered at her defiance, threatened her with his gun, but Sitara continued to resist. “He said, ‘Aren’t you ashamed? Don’t you have modesty? Don’t you have a brother, father, or husband that you’ve ridden with five men in a car?’ she recounts. “I replied that I hadn’t done anything wrong. ‘If you want to kill me, then do it, but I won’t get out. I have rights, and I should be able to use the city transport.’” Eventually, the Taliban member “slapped the driver three times and told him never to pick up such shameless and rude women again.” Then, the driver and Sitara were allowed to leave.
Other times, Sitara has been beaten by Taliban members after arguing with them about taking a taxi. She’s not alone. “They would force women to get off, tell them to stay near their homes, beat them with sticks, and this has happened to many women multiple times, not just me,” she says. Still, she’s not prepared to stop demanding her right to sit inside a taxi.
*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees and writer. Sana Atef and Mahsa Elham are the pseudonyms of Zan Times journalists in Afghanistan.
