The hollow depressions left in the mountain face of the Bamiyan Valley — once home to the UNESCO-recognised Bamiyan Buddhas — stand today as a reminder of Taliban-enabled destruction in Afghanistan.
But for Dr Habiba Sarabi, who served as Bamiyan province’s first female governor, a more urgent issue in Afghanistan’s cultural and political identity demands attention: the growing gap in gender equality.
As Taliban control over Afghanistan crossed its fourth anniversary on 15 August, Dr Sarabi said the situation for women on the ground has deteriorated dramatically.
“Women inside the country are frustrated and hopeless,” she told The New Arab. “Unfortunately, Afghanistan now feels like an open-air prison for women.”
Now living in exile for the second time in her life, Dr Sarabi describes the Taliban’s return as a recurring nightmare.
As a woman, her rise to prominence in Afghan society was not without struggle. However, before the Taliban first came to power in 1996, Dr Sarabi notes that Afghan society was more open to women’s empowerment.
“Generally, the situation was good for Afghan women,” she said. “Afghanistan is a very male-dominated country, and culturally, men have the upper hand… but we had opportunities. If someone wanted to go to school or get an education, it was acceptable. It wasn’t taboo for girls to attend.”
Teaching girls beyond Taliban reach
Dr Sarabi graduated from Kabul University in 1987 with a degree in pharmacy. She later received a fellowship from the World Health Organization to pursue further studies in haematology in India.
Most would agree that Dr Sarabi symbolised a brief golden era for women’s rights in the country, but her life took a massive turn when the Taliban first seized power in 1996.
Forced to flee to Pakistan during the group’s initial rule, she shifted her focus from medicine to education — supporting Afghan girls whose access to schooling had been abruptly cut off.
“We had some underground schools in Afghanistan. I used to travel into the country specifically, then bring the girls back to Pakistan to run a literacy programme,” she said, noting that the impact of this work was both practical and psychological.
“It had a great impact because, first of all, they were receiving moral support. In Afghanistan, depression was — and still is — one of the biggest challenges among women and girls. That’s why, in addition to the education they were getting, moral support allowed them to talk about depression and other mental health concerns.”
'I never imagined it could happen again'
After the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001, Dr Sarabi returned to Afghanistan, believing the darkest chapter had ended.
Selected as the inaugural Minister of Women’s Affairs in President Hamid Karzai’s US-backed Afghan government from 2002 to 2004, and then appointed as Bamiyan province’s first female governor in 2005, she was convinced that the prospects for Afghan women would only improve over time.
“I received a very warm welcome from the community,” she recalled. “We focused on administrative efforts — developing facilities, roads, funding, schools, as well as clinics and hospitals.”
Boosting childhood education rates, especially for girls, became one of her proudest achievements in office.
“For girls in Kabul, it peaked at 59 percent… and of course, you had girls going to university.”
But in August 2021, as the US withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban regained control, Dr Sarabi’s hopes for long-term progress were shattered.
“I experienced the first Taliban rule, when women had no rights and were completely erased from society. I never imagined it could happen again — it was truly horrific.”
Decades of progress erased
Today, the prospects for women on the ground are a far cry from Dr Sarabi’s trailblazing journey into politics.
According to recent UNESCO reporting, the Taliban have introduced over 70 decrees in the past four years that restrict women’s and girls’ rights — particularly in education, employment, and freedom of movement without a male companion.
Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where girls are banned from both secondary and higher education. Nearly 2.2 million girls have been affected, with many more shut out due to poverty or early marriage. UNICEF estimates that 28 percent of Afghan girls marry before the age of 18.
Regarding Dr Sarabi’s proudest achievement — rising literacy rates among girls — this progress has now been reversed. National literacy for girls now sits just above 20 percent.
Dr Sarabi is especially troubled by a new Taliban edict banning women from speaking in public.
“When, for example, a woman goes to a shop to buy something, she’s not allowed to speak or ask the price of an item. She can’t even say, ‘What’s the cost? What is the price of this material?’ They’re simply not allowed to do that,” Dr Sarabi explained.
She stressed that these rules are not based on Islamic teachings, with the Taliban’s decrees diverging significantly from the visions of most other Islamic countries.
“Women receiving an education is allowed in Islam, because the first verses in the Quran begin with ‘Iqra’ — meaning ‘Read’ in Arabic — and that applies to both men and women," she explained. "There are many teachings in Islam that support the right of both men and women to read and gain knowledge, but [the Taliban] don’t care about that.”
Taliban continues to resist diplomacy
Diplomatic attempts to counter the normalisation of the Taliban’s repressive vision have been ongoing for years, even before their second takeover in 2021.
Dr Sarabi recalled her time as one of four women representatives on the former Afghan government’s negotiating team at the Doha Peace Talks with the Taliban in February 2020, where the Taliban showed a disappointing unwillingness to compromise on their radically repressive vision for Afghan society.
“At the beginning, when we went to Doha, there was a lot of hope… and the people of Afghanistan were hopeful too,” she said. “But later, we saw that the Taliban were not genuinely interested in negotiations. They mostly wanted to play games and didn’t attend meetings regularly.”
Diplomats aimed to proactively work with the Taliban’s desire to reinstate Sharia-guided governance by pointing to prospering nations in the Gulf and South-East Asia as ideal case studies to follow.
“They have ideals and think that… all the other Muslim communities, or Muslim Ummah… should follow them.”
She also revealed the Taliban refused to take part in discussions with Muslim scholars that could have challenged their views.
“We made some efforts to facilitate a debate between different religious scholars… but the Taliban representatives didn’t show up. They didn’t want to attend the debate, even though there’s a major religious council in Doha.”
Dr Sarabi highlighted that this refusal is reflected in the Taliban’s lack of mercy towards those with differing opinions among its citizenry.
She has witnessed frequent use of corporal punishment inflicted on Afghans who dare to deviate from the regime’s ultra-conservative policies.
“I have seen two men hanging from a crane and their dead bodies swinging in the city of Herat. Can you believe that? In the 21st century, people can do something like that,” she shared.
Punishments for women, she added, often involve public and prolonged suffering inflicted by the Taliban.
“They were stoning women when they were accused of adultery. One woman fell in love with another man, and they were secretly meeting to date. They stoned that woman, and it’s horrible… imagine a living woman just standing there while people throw stones at her until she dies.”
Women are exhausted but not finished
Despite the emotional toll, Dr Sarabi said she is not giving up.
Now involved in multilateral diplomatic work led by the United Nations, she continues to support grassroots efforts such as the Women’s Forum on Afghanistan.
In August, the group issued a statement declaring: “The flame of women’s resistance continues to burn.”
“For me, at an older age,” she said, “this is the second time I have fallen, and they have damaged all my power and energy. Still, I’m getting up, ready to stand and fight.”
Four years after the Taliban’s return, Dr Sarabi hopes the world will not forget Afghanistan and will continue to hold the Taliban accountable for enforcing a gender apartheid that amounts to a crime against humanity.
“I know there are many issues in the world — for example, Syria and Ukraine — but please remember that Afghanistan and the Afghan people are also part of this,” she pledged.
Dr Sarabi draws hope from some efforts by the international community to hold the Taliban regime accountable.
In September 2024, Australia, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands announced their intention to initiate proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Afghanistan for violations of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
Two months later, six countries referred Afghanistan to the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the deprivation of human rights in the country, particularly targeting women and girls.
“These announcements are good news that can shake the Taliban,” Dr Sarabi said. “But I hope other countries will follow their lead, support them, and also impose sanctions. This can help support Afghan women and reduce the credibility of the Taliban.”
Bianca Roberts is a freelance journalist and mass communication lecturer in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates