‘One day the Taliban will need women to be educated’: three sisters on being forced back to Afghanistan

Summary

The article follows three Afghan sisters—Maahi, Shallah, and Fatimah—whose family moved between Afghanistan and Iran because of war, insecurity, and restrictions on Afghan refugees’ education. They were living in Qom when the Taliban entered Kabul on 15 August 2021. Although the sisters initially hoped the Taliban might govern more moderately than during the 1990s, their hopes diminished as women and girls in Afghanistan faced bans on secondary and higher education, employment, parks, and other areas of public life. The family was deported from Iran after Iranian authorities intensified arrests and expulsions of Afghans. The article reports that more than one million Afghans were forcibly returned from Iran and Pakistan over the preceding year, including about 400,000 from Iran since the beginning of the year. Now living in Herat, the sisters attend unofficial private classes that cannot provide recognized diplomas. Maahi hopes to complete her education and emigrate, Shallah is considering overseas university study, and Fatimah has appealed to Iranian authorities for permission to return. Their experiences illustrate the combined effects of forced displacement, discrimination, deportation, and Taliban restrictions on Afghan women and girls.