Escaping the Taliban: My Story

Written By Mary S

Written by Marya Maani

Please support Marya in her struggle to escape the Taliban.

I am Marya Maani, an Afghan women’s human rights and social activist, and for the last five years I have been actively involved and engaged in women’s rights activism and social activism. In this course I have been associated with various organizations that were working for the same cause. I have been involved in the following initiatives and activities as part of my activism.

I was part of a campaign with the name of “Education for Girls” in which we visited door to door in Kabul and peripheries encouraging parents to educate their daughters for their better future. We also assured the poor parents they could support their kids’ education through various funds whenever we were faced with excuses of financial issues for educating girls, in parallel with that we were also requesting the government and other NGOs to work for female education and to make polices that would help girls’ education thrive, to make more schools for girls, give uniforms and books for girls and incentivise their education by offering benefits of going to school so that more girls and parents would attract towards it. I have been involved in arranging various capacity building programs for women of Afghanistan especially in the peripheries where they lack any employment opportunities or any means of source for income, these programs were aimed at teaching vocational skills to the women so that they could be able to earn money from their own homes thus getting some sort of financial independence, empowerment and stability. Some of the skills that we tried to teach the rural as well as urban women were stitching, embroidery, sketching, IT skills, English Classes, cooking classes and other soft skills. I have been part of various awareness and informative sessions for women where women were being educated about various health issues and their resolution and precautions to prevent them, their rights, importance of education, resisting domestic violence, disadvantages of early child marriage and other things related to women. I along with my other comrades have always had a strong opposition to all the draconian, oppressive laws against women like making Hijab/Veil donning mandatory, ban on girls education, early child marriage, confinement of women to house and other similar policies. In addition, we have been vocal against the injustices against women like domestic violence, acid attacks on women, harassment in work and public places, honor killings and virginity tests of women after or before marriage. We have not only opposed the injustices, discrimination and oppression against women but also worked to counter and eliminate these issues in our capacity. I have organized various protests, movements and sit-ins against all the oppressive laws and for the rights of women. We have faced many instances of baton beating, had tear gas fired at us and were shelled on the streets for our activism. I have received several threats for my activism. I have been under the surveillance of the Taliban for many days, my house was raided and I had to remain in hiding for a long time for my own safety but at last I have to flee the country to save myself and to prevent any harm to my family.

Due to my activism I have faced several threats and difficulties. It is extremely difficult to work and speak for women’s rights in a country like Afghanistan where misogyny and patriarchy is deeply rooted in society and culture. One don’t only face routine harassment, mocking and ridicule but serious threats such as killing, rape and acid attacks so I have always been under the fear of being confronted with any of the aforementioned threats, but despite this my commitment and empathy for my fellow Afghan women was so strong that it surpassed all my fears and kept me pushing for years and willing to bear anything for it. In the course of my activism I have received several threats for my work before the rise of the Taliban, after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban the atmosphere was made more difficult for activists like me. Our opposition to the Taliban amplified despite their oppressive regime and imminent threats against our lives. Promptly after the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban we marched into the streets against the takeover, and thousands of women joined us in our resistance. As their regime got more and more oppressive with their draconian laws and tyranny, our conviction and commitment further fortified and we resisted more strongly in the shape of various protests and movements but all this while we were being closely followed and monitored by the Taliban. Things started getting dangerous for me on 13-Aug-22 when we rushed to the streets to protest against the law of making Hijab/Veil mandatory for women. Taliban started to crack down on the protesters with baton charges and tear gas and they tried to arrest us. As a result, we had to run away to save ourselves but I was followed and chased till I disappeared into my home. After I got inside the Taliban tried to enter my home to search for me but I ran away out the back door and took refuge in my sister's house for some days. On 15-August-2023, a letter addressed to me was sent to my home from the Taliban, threatening me to stop my work and activism and to report to their court quickly. Non compliance to orders would lead to capital punishment. I was already trying to get a passport for many days, having realised the severity of the situation after 13-Aug-2022, so I expedited the work on it. I took the help of one of my contacts to get the passport more quickly, but I had to pay a huge amount to get it expedited. I got my passport on 17-Aug-2022. The next step was to get a visa and flee the country as soon as possible, so I applied for the visa and had to hide in Takhar (a place in Afghanistan) at one of my friend’s homes until 15-September-2022. I received the Pakistani visa on 11-September-2022 after trying hard through my contacts and paying a lot of money as well. I was now identified by the Taliban and I was living under continuous threat of being caught. On 30-August-2022 Taliban again raided my house to arrest me but I was not at my home and was in hiding, which saved me. During the raid Taliban assaulted and manhandled my family and sisters to produce me and damaged many assets during the search and raid. Luckily my mother hid all my documents so they didn’t find them. Realising the severity of the situation, I started making necessary arrangements to secretly flee the country. Finally, I succeeded and fled the country on 18-September-2022 in a complete veil to be unrecognisable.

I fled to Pakistan from Afghanistan through Torkham (border between Afghanistan & Pakistan) with a younger sister and a minor niece and have been taking refuge in Pakistan since. It has been more than a year that we three young girls have been living alone without any male guardian in a country that is male dominated and is not safe for women. Our situation is extremely miserable as we are struggling a lot to meet our basic and immediate needs of food, accommodation and medical costs due to a lack of any income and job here. I have the responsibility of a minor niece with me because she doesn't have any guardian and it has been more than four years that she is out of school but we haven’t been able to pay for her educational expenses. I have to bring her with me because her step father wanted to marry her off to an old man for money. We are receiving continuous threats from him. He is threatening us that he will come to Pakistan to kill us and we are extremely afraid of that as well. Since we can’t go back to Afghanistan due to the serious threats to our lives and the dark future there, it is requested to please help us in relocation to any safe country where we could save our lives and start work to support ourselves and our families.

My situation in Exile

Since 18-September-2022 I have been living in Pakistan along with a younger sister and a minor niece, away from our family with no job, safety and no future. The Taliban have many contacts in Pakistan and there are many sympathizers of the Taliban here. I was on a Temporary Visit Visa which expired on 10-September-2023. I had applied for an extension of the visa in November 2022, almost 9 months prior to the visa expiration date, but my visa extension has still not been accepted and there is no decision on it yet. The Pakistani authorities have decided to arrest and deport Afghan refugees without valid visas and they are actively looking for Afghans with continuous raids in areas where Afghan refugees live. They are even checking inside apartments to find those without visa or travel documents and will arrest them to deport them back. So the risk of deportation is lurking in our heads all the time, and if we are deported back our life is in danger and there is misery and suffering for us. We need help before this happens.

We are not allowed to work nor can we work due to a lack of opportunities and the language barrier, so it is extremely difficult to sustain our stay as we can’t even manage the subsistence costs and make ends meet. The society here is also hostile towards Afghans in general and women in particular. We sense discrimination wherever we go, and become victims of exploitation in every work, be it renting rooms, buying anything or while availing other services. We have faced many instances of harassment and bullying here, even now we are facing this from one of our neighbours.

It is requested through this blog to please help us in relocating to any safe country so that we can save our lives, pursue our education, resume work, support ourselves and our family and pursue all my goals that we can’t in my own country. We also deserve the right to education, work, freedom of speech and expression and safety which have been denied in our own country. We want to move to a safe country and build a good life for us, our family and our people so that one day we could return back to our country when the situation normalises to contribute towards the development of the country and its people.

You can contact Marya at mariamaani28@gmail.com

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Mary S
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