Afghanistan: 5 Years in the Dark — The Diplomat

Fatima keeps her medical textbooks in a cupboard she no longer opens. Her university ID card, with its photograph of a 19-year-old who intended to become a doctor, sits among them like a relic from another country. In a sense, it is. The Afghanistan that printed the card – a state with a constitution, a free press and women in its universities, courtrooms, and newsrooms – no longer exists. “Sometimes I look at a bird and feel jealous, because it has more freedom than I do,” she told me from Kabul, where, at 24, she describes herself as a prisoner in her own home. “I often think that if the Taliban had not come, I would still be at university, working toward my biggest dream of becoming a doctor. Now, instead of dreaming about my future, I spend my days wondering how I will survive and asking myself, ‘Why me?’” August 15 marks five years since the fall of Kabul, and Fatima’s question has an answer, though not one that offers her any comfort. It is not just her. Roughly 20 million Afghan women and girls have been erased from public life – not by accident or by the chaos of war but by design. Decree by decree, ministry circular by ministry circular, the removal of half of Afghanistan’s population…