We live beneath a dark roof: what it means to be an Afghan woman today

Roma Ayuobi once had a promising career. Then the Taliban came back to power. Now she is jobless. She lives in Kabul, with her husband and young child. Her house is cold and her son is unwell. She’s worried that she can’t pay for the help he needs.

We asked Ayuobi to write about what it means to be an Afghan woman today as part of our new project, Letters from Afghan Women, where we offer a platform to women from inside the country to speak freely on whatever they feel those outside need to know. She said that writing this article was one of the best moments for her recently.

What is clear, and history bears witness to, is that life under the Taliban passes in hardship and anguish. Their second rule has brought endless trouble for all, but none more so than for the brave women and girls who dare to resist. Now we live in a time heavy with sorrow, with no light of hope ahead – for Afghan women have been pushed out of both public and private life, denied a full education, their once vibrant presence erased, their colours drained from the tapestry of society. The girls who once dreamed of shaping a brighter future instead live beneath a dark roof – a roof that has sealed away their light for 1,800 days and counting.

Is this what remains for us – Afghan women and girls – to stand outside the circle of our own rights, unseen in the world we helped build?

The courageous Afghan women, who have fought for their rights throughout history, struggle to even step outside their homes to earn a piece of bread for their displaced families. Because of their struggle, many have been arrested and subjected to brutal torture. Some have lost their lives; others have been forced to flee the country illegally, carrying nothing but their pain, surviving in the margins of foreign lands.

Even beyond Afghanistan’s borders, in neighbouring countries, safety remains an illusion. One Afghan woman activist was even recently attacked in Europe [in Germany] by those who cannot bear her voice.

For Afghan women, danger has never ended, it only changes its shape. What we are witnessing is not just a step back in time, but a calculated effort to erase women from every corner of public life.

These restrictions could have disastrous consequences for women with no mahram (‘male guardians’). Because the presence of women in a society is life-giving.

The obliteration of education stands as the Taliban’s most cruel and symbolic act – their war on knowledge, their battle against women. They cloak their prohibitions in the shadow of Sharia, but nowhere in true faith is there a command that strips women and girls of the right to learn or to work. Even the sacred texts speak of knowledge as a light meant for all, men and women alike.

They have chained women to darkness, to a life without knowledge, without voice.

Among all these injustices, women’s health stands on the edge of catastrophe. So many women are at risk, yet even the doctors who could save them are forbidden to work. Those who wish to travel into perilous, remote villages to reach suffering women are stopped – for they cannot move without a male guardian. And so, what might have been life-saving care becomes silence, and too often, becomes death. Indeed the deaths of mothers and children, once heartbreakingly common, is multiplying again.

What unfolds in Afghanistan is more than tragedy; it is a warning to the world. For a nation that silences its women silences its own future – leaving only darkness where hope once lived.

They may erase women from sight, but can they ever silence their voices? No, they can never silence the voice of a grieving mother whose cries echo across the world.

Even under such crushing silence, the fire of Afghan women has not gone out. In hidden rooms and secret schools, they still learn, dreaming of a day when life will be theirs again.

Afghan women cannot wait for the hands that oppress them to also deliver justice; their rights will not be handed down by corruption but reclaimed through their own courage.

They must take up the struggle themselves and reclaim what is theirs. But whenever they cry out, countless women and girls are struck – in body and spirit. Their families, too, suffer reprisals.

When women and girls step outside their homes, simply to walk, to breathe, even then, they cannot draw an easy breath. From every direction, harsh voices shout: “Where is your hijab? Why is your hair showing? Where is your mahram? You have no right to be here!”

If a girl dares to answer back to such words, she risks brutal violence – and defending herself only brings greater danger.

These very restrictions have forced many girls into early and arranged marriages, because continuing life under such conditions has become unbearable. Forced marriage is a deep wound in the lives of many girls in this sleeping land.

If we look closely, women make up half the body of humanity, yet throughout history, their rights have been trampled underfoot.

I wanted to hear from some of the anguished women and girls of this country whose voices have been silenced. A young woman, who always dreamt of serving her community as a capable doctor, says:

“Life feels unbearably heavy. Each day I ask myself: why have we become dimmed lamps in our own country? We are not even allowed to study unless a man shadows us. When the world turned against me, I had no choice but to work on the streets, earning what little I can to feed my family. Without a guardian, even my right to exist now belongs to them.”

A mother, who struggles to provide for her children, says:

“I work in a private office, but since the Taliban came to power, security has worsened. They dismissed many women from their jobs, and even those who remain have not received their salaries for months. Life has become twice as hard. Even as I scrub the floors, my mind wanders home – wondering what waits for me there?”

One more woman speaks, her voice carrying the weight of lost dreams, dreams she once held before this rule began:

“My pen was meant to fight for other women and girls. I always dreamed of being a voice for the voiceless, of carrying their silence to every institution that would listen. But with the arrival of this dark regime – a reality too painful even to imagine – all those dreams were buried alive. These endless horrors have doubled the hardship of my life. I have lost so much – even my home and belongings were taken from me because I was a woman who wrote and spoke in the media. I am no longer allowed to travel from one province to another without a male guardian. And the words that echo endlessly in my mind are always the same: ‘Where is your guardian? You are not allowed outside. Go back inside.’ They have locked the doors of life itself and with them, the end of my dreams.”

And so it is for many women, caught in the unending struggle of hardship and survival.

Is this the life we are meant to live, where even outside our homes we cannot witness life itself? Oh, this dark roof – it has smothered the air, choking the last traces of humanity!

Still we hold onto the hope that one day our country will break free from the chains of Taliban rule, and once again, its women will stand, fight and build a brighter, more progressive Afghanistan.

Translated from Dari by Shukria Rezaei