‘If We Don’t, Who Will?’—How Women in Afghanistan Are Speaking Out
It is dangerous to protest in Afghanistan. But it is also dangerous to be a woman. That’s what keeps Afghan women speaking out in whatever ways they can.
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On the morning of Sept. 11, 2024, a handful of women marched down a street in Kabul. They formed a tight-knit huddle, their faces hidden behind masks. The women were protesting the Taliban, the extremist insurgent group that seized control of Afghanistan after the U.S. pulled out its troops in 2021. It was the first protest of its kind in over a year.
The women had chosen to hold their protest on a day of historic significance to Afghanistan: The Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. triggered events that started the U.S.’s war in Afghanistan, and the idea here was to draw attention to the “forgotten victims of the events of September 11” according to one of the organizers—that is, the women of Afghanistan.
The protesters held aloft small signs in Persian and even though their voices quavered, they chanted over and over, in unison:
“Women’s rights are equal to men’s rights.”
“A voice to liberation: education, work, freedom.”
“The Taliban is committing crimes.”
“The Taliban should be condemned.”
The protest may have been small—in terms of size it couldn’t hold a candle to recent manifestations that have made the front page, like the millions who marched for victims of rape in India or those who have poured out for women’s rights in Iran—but it was significant. Why? Mostly because women speaking out like this, boldly and loudly and publicly, isn’t supposed to happen under Taliban rule. But it did.
Women Under the Taliban, Circa 2024
Since taking over Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban has imposed severe restrictions on women’s freedoms and rights. In successive edicts, it has forbidden Afghan women from attending high school and universities, banned women’s employment across various sectors including the law and government, and severely curbed women’s public and political participation. Just three years ago, women comprised 27% of the Afghan parliament, but under the Taliban women are forbidden from holding any governance or parliamentary political roles. Under the Taliban, women-run small businesses such as beauty salons have been closed, and women have been banned from going to parks and public baths, among other restrictions.
The Taliban has also cracked down on women’s free movement—women are required to be accompanied by a male guardian—her mahram—when traveling. And a recent Taliban law now bans women’s voices in public. To be sure, men’s actions and lives have also been curtailed too, but not to the same extent as women who are steadily being erased from public life.
New Ways to Protest
In the early days after the Taliban retook power, Afghan women and men regularly took to the streets of Kabul and other major cities to demand their rights. But as the Taliban tightened its grip on the country, brutally punishing any form of dissent and criticism, the protestors gradually thinned. Many, who were able, fled the country to avoid persecution, and others were forced into hiding. But small pockets of resistance, largely women, persisted.
In response to the deeper crackdowns, Afghan women figured out new ways to engage in nonviolent methods to express their demands. Many held demonstrations behind closed doors or on social media platforms, careful to protect the identities of those involved.
In August, when the Taliban released its new edict banning women’s voices in public, hundreds of Afghan women recorded themselves singing and reciting poetry, and posted the videos to social media. Many wore face masks and veils to protect their identity.
The Afghan athlete Marzieh Hamidi, now living outside the country, is one of many who started an online campaign urging women to share their songs and poetry under the hashtag #LetUsExist. Others joined in.
“If the boots are on my throat, the fist on my mouth, I swear by the light of my heart, I will not stay in this terror.”
“I am a woman, I am the world. I love my freedom. If the boots are on my throat, the fist on my mouth, I swear by the light of my heart, I will not stay in this terror,” one woman sang in a widely-circulated clip.
In another video, Taiba Sulaimani, a student activist, sang in Persian while putting on her headscarf: “I am not weak like the willow that blows with every wind,” “I am from Afghanistan and I have to suffer, but one day I will break this cage, leave this humiliation, and sing with happiness.”
The purpose of this work, including the protest on Sept. 11, which was an-in person extension of the online campaign, is twofold according to Roqia Saee, one of the key organizers: First, to revive the momentum of previous protests and second, to draw attention back to the situation of women in Afghanistan.
Saee, a former security official in the previous government who now lives in exile, organized the entire demonstration through group chats and via her network of women activists that she has built over the past three years. Planning and coordinating every little detail, from arranging transportation logistics to convincing businesses to print her anti-Taliban posters was a daunting task.
It was a bold move. Women protesters in the past, Saee included, have been detained, and there are numerous reports of women being abused while in detention and prison.
“Yes, it is dangerous to protest in Afghanistan, but it is also dangerous to be a woman... our voices, our choices, what we wear, our education, our very identity is restricted,” explained Saee, who was forced to flee the country to avoid further persecution.
When it comes to speaking out, “if we don’t, who will?” she asked.
Women in Resistance
It’s not just Afghanistan. Saee’s is a sentiment that plays out globally, as we see women take a key role in organizing nonviolent protests in many countries.
Erica Chenoweth is a political scientist at Harvard. In their research, they analyzed women’s participation in 338 nonviolent and violent uprisings around the world from 1945 to 2014. What they found was that women not only add scale, but also legitimacy to protest campaigns. Women also bring creativity and innovation to the movements.
This finding was echoed in research by Mariam Safi, the founding director of Organization for Policy Research and Development Studies, a Kabul-based research organization. “The Afghan women’s movement emerged organically and grew stronger during the [U.S.] talks with the Taliban… and one great lesson here was how they were able to continue that momentum even after the Taliban takeover,” she told me.
What makes the Afghan women’s movement successful, Safi points out, is that it’s diverse and unified despite being fragmented and spread across the globe. The diversity part is particularly important, Safi explains, showing up in ethnicities, politics (say, conservative and liberal) and regional backgrounds (say, rural and urban).
“While they may have disagreements on smaller issues, they agree and work together on the bigger picture items, such as protecting the constitution and human rights. Women inside Afghanistan work closely with those outside Afghanistan to advocate for their rights,” she said, pointing to a recent meeting in Albania that included the participation of over 100 women activists from inside Afghanistan, as a good example.
And indeed, these efforts do have an effect: Safi believes the Afghan women’s movement has kept the pressure on the UN and international community, making sure women aren’t forgotten.
“I think if it wasn’t for the women’s movement we would have already seen steps by the international community toward the recognition of the Taliban, and easing their sanctions,” Safi said.
That’s why a protest like this, small though it was, has an outsize impact, it isn’t just the Taliban that sees it, it’s the world.
An Historical Precedent
What’s happening with the Afghan women’s movement is not new insofar as women have long been on the frontlines of nonviolent movements, note Jonathan Pinckney and Miranda Rivers in a recent report for the U.S. Institute of Peace.
“As women engage in nonviolent action, they draw on their identities not only as women but also as workers, mothers, wives, citizens, or members of racial and ethnic groups. Women have participated in movements around the world to end wars, oust dictators, challenge colonial rule, and expand women’s rights,” they wrote.
“Women frequently participate in movements against authoritarianism while making space to express their desires for equality and respect as women.”
Safi notes that in Afghanistan, women’s demands “have always intersected with other issues such as good governance, sustainable development, rights of marginalized. It is never just about women's rights,” as opposed to men’s opposition to the Taliban which is mobilized around regional, ethnic and political allegiances.
"It is never just about women's rights."
Moreover it is because Afghan women were not party to the conflict, that their resistance has always been nonviolent, she says. Women did not start the war, she explains, and nor were they included in the process that led to the fall of the republic government. Men (the warlords; the politicians) started the war and benefited from it, and now other men (the Taliban) are benefiting from the power. By contrast, Afghan women have always sought for more nuanced, nonviolent solutions, and this is reflected in their struggle even now.”
Research, including that of the Harvard scholar, Erica Chenoweth, back the claim that women’s capacity to remain nonviolent makes women’s movements more impactful. Studies show that nonviolent movements with frontline participation of women are more likely to achieve their goals and less likely to turn to violence and are highly-correlated with “successful resistance campaigns,” notes Chenoweth’s report.
Marie Principe, an academic at the Wilson Center, which focuses on global affairs, came to a similar assertion in a 2017 report. “Activists consistently reported that women were better able to remain nonviolent, even in the face of violent government repression,” she noted in her report.
In fact, so ingrained is this assurance of women’s peacefulness, that some movements deliberately put women in the frontlines. “A strong women’s presence during public demonstrations may pose a moral dilemma for security forces, which could well think twice about cracking down violently on such protests,” Principe said.
As for the Afghan women protestors, violence under the Taliban was perhaps inevitable, but there was a small chance that seeing women demonstrating might deter the Taliban from immediately arresting them, at least in that moment. The covert nature of the protest also worked in their favor: To date, none have been detained, although many did go into hiding, directly following the protest.
And while it’s true that some male allies accompanied the women in the march, Saee told me the men walked alongside the women, at a safe distance, and offered words of encouragement, but they didn’t actively participate, because “the Taliban would not hesitate to detain and hurt them right away.”
Looked at like that, the decision for women to take the frontlines in a protest makes sense. Yes, it’s risky. Yes it puts their families, particularly men in their lives, in danger. But it may also be the most effective way of getting the job done.
“We will fight and we will not stop fighting until we get our freedom,” said Saee.
Josie Cox
Josie Cox
Josie Cox
