These women fled Afghanistan. What's at stake for those left behind?
In the past month, Naheed Esar has spent her days settling into a new life as a doctoral student in the leafy college town of Fayetteville, Arkansas. At night, when her family in Afghanistan is just waking up, she calls them. “We try to calm one another,” she says. “But it starts with: Are you alive? Where is this person, where is that person?” She doesn’t get much sleep.
For 20 years, women in Afghanistan have gone to school, pursued careers, and fought to achieve a social standing equal to men. They’ve become artists, activists, and actors. Now, Esar and millions of women are grappling with the sudden Taliban takeover of their country. Thousands of women are fleeing or in hiding as they await an uncertain future.
For the past six years, 33-year-old Esar has served in the Afghan government, starting as a gender expert for the presidential palace and ending as a deputy foreign minister. By that time, the threats were constant: Esar traveled with five bodyguards in an armored vehicle, and dogs sniffed her Kabul home for bombs once a week. After the peace deal struck between the U.S. and the Taliban in 2020, the prospects for her—and millions of other ambitious Afghan women—to continue their lives grew increasingly tenuous.
Esar began preparing for her departure. “I realized if I stayed, I wouldn’t be able to leave Afghanistan alive,” Esar says.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/for-afghan-women-20-years-of-gains-face-an-uncertain-future
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