Bilal Rahimi

Afghan women: Secret diaries of changing lives

There's a scene in The Handmaid's Tale, the TV series based on Margaret Attwood's dystopian novel, where the main heroine, book editor June Osborne, comes at her job one morning only to hear that the country's new leaders have barred women from the workplace. Her employer gathers all the female staff and instructs them to pack up their belongings and go home. Maari, a former Afghan Army soldier, had a nearly comparable experience on August 15, 2021. She heads to work at a federal ministry at 7:30 a.m., anticipating a full day of meetings and conferences. When she steps outside, she notes how quiet the streets are, but she continues on her walk, pulling out her phone to check her schedule for upcoming meetings. "You've come to work!" exclaim shocked male colleagues when she walks in. "I don't think Kabul is going to fall," she replies. When her boss confronts her, she has barely put down her luggage. "Go home and tell all the women," he says. She follows orders, walking from room to room and ordering female staff to leave immediately. When her supervisor, on the other hand, urges her to go home, she refuses. "I'm staying and working as long as my male colleagues are," she says. Maari isn't simply ordinary employee. She's a high-ranking official with an amazing military background, and her employer reluctantly accepts what she says. However, as the day progresses, tales of the Taliban entering Kabul grow increasingly difficult to dismiss. Maari's employer makes the decision to close the ministry and send everyone home.