In the past month, a wave of arrests — really abductions — has swept across Kabul. Women and girls accused of “improper hijab” have been dragged off the streets, out of markets, and even from restaurants by the Taliban’s morality police. I spoke with several who endured these detentions. Their faces are etched with grief and tears as they recount the terror they felt when taken.
Tarana was walking with her cousin near her home in Qala-e-Naw, in the Dasht-e-Barchi area of Kabul, when Taliban enforcers stopped them. “Even though our hijab was completely proper and we were only not wearing masks, one of those women grabbed my hand, pulled me to the side of the street, and said, ‘Your hijab is not correct! Get in the car,’” says Tarana.
The two young women were held inside the vehicle for about half an hour before being released, thanks to their protests and the intervention of onlookers who had surrounded the car. Three weeks later, Tarana is still in shock. Withdrawn, she sits in a darkened room with the curtains drawn. She no longer joins her family or plays with her younger siblings. “How easily one can be kidnapped and imprisoned just for being a woman,” she repeats to herself.
Tarana’s story is not unique.
Negar, who lives in the Karte Sakhi area of Kabul, recalls her ordeal: “My mother was sick, so I hurriedly got ready to visit her. Near the main road, the ‘white coats’ [Taliban enforcers] stopped me and mocked me, saying, ‘Where are you going, movie girl?’”
The Taliban arrested her for wearing white shoes, wearing makeup, and leaving her home without a male guardian. Taken to Police District 3, she was allowed to call her husband. “While I was detained, I felt death there,” she says. “They hurled insults at my husband, repeatedly calling him dishonourable.” The Taliban warned him that “a woman has no right to leave the house without a mahram [male guardian], and in such an appearance,” explains Negar. Since then, she finds that stepping outside her home is a nightmare.
Tabasom was returning from an English course when she was detained in Pul-e-Khoshk, Dasht-e-Barchi, and taken to Police District 18. “My hijab was proper. They only called me a ‘dancer’ because my clothes were bright-coulored,” she explains. Taliban officers told her she must wear all-black, warning that bright clothing “attracts men’s attention.”
She spent more than four hours in detention, enduring insults, humiliation, and beatings. Released after her parents guaranteed her freedom, Tabasom has not left the house since. “After that incident, I have nightmares every night. Everywhere feels terrifying to me,” she says. During her confinement, the Taliban warned her not to speak of her arrest: “They told me not to post about it on Facebook, or they would imprison me and my entire family.”
These arrests have sown fear across the capital. Mohammad, a driver who works in Kabul, says he has repeatedly seen women and girls taken away. “They gathered both veiled and unveiled women and loaded them into vehicles,” he recalls. For him, the Taliban’s goal is clear: “They want to create an atmosphere of terror so that no woman dares to leave her home.”
Ali, another minibus driver, has also witnessed women being pulled off public vans. “They dragged women and forced them into their vehicles with beatings,” he says. The experience has changed his own family’s life. As the father of two teenage daughters who had been studying English, Ali now forbids them from attending classes. “I stopped my daughters from going to their course. My heart would shatter if one day I saw them beaten like that and taken away. It’s better they stay home,” he explains.
The terror is not isolated to Kabul. Across Afghanistan, women and girls find themselves imprisoned in their own homes — too afraid to go out because they are terrified of arrest or imprisonment by the Taliban. Yet, they also find that remaining at home brings fear of its own, especially a darkening future where no girl goes to school.
For the women of Afghanistan, the terror they experience has no end. They live with destinies shaped by pain.
