What will happen now to women in Afghanistan?
2:35
(CNN) -
Najia was at home with her three young sons and daughter in a small town in northern Afghanistan when Taliban fighters knocked on her door.
Najia's 25-year-old daughter Manizha knew they were coming: her mother had told her they had done the same thing the previous three days, demanding that she cook food for up to 15 fighters.
"My mother told them: 'I'm poor, how can I cook for you? (The Taliban) started beating her. My mother collapsed and they beat her with their AK47 guns," she said.
Manizha said he yelled at the fighters to stop.
They paused for a moment before throwing a grenade into the next room and fleeing as the flames spread, he said.
The mother of four children died from the beating.
Former CIA Analyst: There Will Be Genocide In Afghanistan 1:20
The deadly July 12 attack on Najia's home in Faryab province was a chilling foretaste of the threat women across Afghanistan now face following the Taliban's takeover of the capital, Kabul.
CNN uses the aliases Najia and Manizha to protect their identity for security reasons.
advertising
In 10 days, Taliban militants have seized dozens of provincial capitals that have been left vulnerable after the withdrawal of US and allied troops.
The speed of the militants' advance caught the local population by surprise.
Afghanistan, minute by minute: "I firmly stand by my decision," says Biden
Some women said they had not had time to buy a burqa to comply with Taliban regulations that women must be covered and accompanied by a male relative when leaving home.
For Afghan women, the cloth represents the sudden and devastating loss of rights acquired over 20 years - the right to work, study, travel and even live in peace - that they fear they will never regain.
Deep distrust of the Taliban
The last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, between 1996 and 2001, they closed girls' schools and banned women from working.
Following the invasion of the United States in 2001, restrictions on women were relaxed, and even as the war raged, a local commitment to improving women's rights, supported by international groups and donors, led to the creation of new protections. legal.
In 2009, the Law on the Elimination of Violence against Women criminalized rape, assault and forced marriage, and made it illegal to prevent women or girls from working or studying.
This time around, the Taliban promise to form an "inclusive Islamic Afghan government", although it is unclear what form it will take and whether the new leadership will include women.
Panic images of Afghans fleeing the Taliban 2:33
Farzana Kochai, who was a member of the Afghan parliament, says she does not know what will come next.
"There has been no clear announcement about the form of government in the future: will we have a parliament in the future government or not?" He said.
She is also concerned about her future freedoms as a woman.
"This is something that worries me the most," he said.
"All women are thinking about this. We are just trying to get an idea ... will women be allowed to work and hold a job or not?" She wondered.
PHOTOS |
This is how the world press covered the fall of Afghanistan
Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said Monday that under the Taliban regime, girls will be able to study.
"Schools will be open and girls and women will go to schools, as teachers, as students," she said.
Beyond the promises of the Taliban
But local people's accounts on the ground paint a different picture, and there is deep mistrust of the militants who caused so much misery under his last government.
In July, Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission claimed that in Taliban-controlled areas women had been ordered not to go to health services without a male guardian.
Television was banned, and teachers and students were ordered to wear turbans and grow beards.
Religious scholars, government officials, journalists, human rights defenders and women have become victims of targeted killings, according to the commission.
One of them was Mina Khairi, a 23-year-old girl who was killed in a car bomb attack in June.
Her father, Mohammad Harif Khairi, who also lost his wife and another daughter in the blast, said the young broadcaster had received death threats for months.
Leaving Afghanistan was a political decision, says analyst 1:31
The last time the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, women who disobeyed orders were beaten.
The Taliban denied killing Najia, the mother who lived in Faryab province, but her words are contradicted by witnesses and local officials who confirmed the death of a 45-year-old woman whose house was burned down.
A neighbor who yelled for the men to stop said that many women in Najia village are widows of Afghan soldiers.
They make a living selling milk, but the Taliban "don't allow it," he said.
"We don't have men in our house, what are we going to do? We want schools, clinics and freedom like other women, men ... other people," she said.
Burqa price rises
The takeover of the country by the Taliban was so swift that some women found themselves without the necessary female uniform for the Taliban government.
One woman, whose name is not being released for security reasons, said there were only one or two burqas in her home to share between her, her sister and her mother.
"In the worst case, if we don't have a burqa, we have to get a sheet or something to make it a bigger scarf," he explained.
Burqa prices rose tenfold in Kabul as women rushed ahead of militants, according to another woman from the city, whose name has also not been released for security reasons.
Some did not make it to markets before they closed on Sunday as store owners rushed home.
The woman said she had spent hours in a bank on Sunday trying to withdraw as much money as possible to see the family through the next few days of uncertainty.
"It was so unexpected, no one expected this to happen so soon. Even people might assume, 'Oh, Kabul can defend itself for a year or so,' but morale is down. The army is surrendering to the Taliban," he said.
She fears for her life, but also for the collapse of a government that has been so fought for and for the end of Afghan women's freedoms.
This is how the world reacts to the Taliban's takeover 1:36
"As a woman, they keep us inside. We have struggled for years to get out, do we have to fight for the same thing again? To get permission to work, to get permission to go alone to the hospital?" She said.
All for nothing
In the past 10 days, a succession of Taliban victories over dozens of provincial capitals brought Afghan women closer to a past they desperately wanted to leave behind.
Pashtana Durrani, founder and CEO of Learn, a nonprofit organization focused on education and women's rights, said her tears were over for her country.
"I have cried so much that I no longer have tears in my eyes to cry. We have been mourning the fall of Afghanistan for quite some time. So I don't feel very well. On the contrary, I feel very hopeless," she said.
Durrani said she had received text messages from both boys and girls, who despaired because the years of study were "all for nothing."
He said the Taliban were still talking about girls' education, but had not defined what it meant.
Islamic studies are presupposed, but "what about gender education? And professional education," he asked.
"If you think about it, it makes you desperate because there is no answer for it," he lamented.
In a tweet, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for an end to all abuses.
"International humanitarian law and human rights, especially the hard-won achievements of women and girls, must be preserved," he said.
Chaos and despair to flee Kabul
In chaotic scenes at Kabul airport on Monday, desperate Afghans climbed a kind of airlift to try to board planes leaving the country.
But for many millions of people there is no escape.
The Kabul woman who spent hours at the bank on Sunday said that even if she could find a flight, she has nowhere to go without a visa.
The only option was to stay inside and hope not to attract attention.
"Going out or doing anything else can put our lives at risk," he said.
As the United States and its allies evacuated staff members, Patricia Gossman, associate director for Asia at Human Rights Watch, urged international donors not to leave Afghanistan.
"Many, many are unable to leave and will be in dire need of both urgent humanitarian aid and other essential services such as education," he said.
"It's the wrong time for donors to say, 'Oh, we're done in Afghanistan,'" he added.
Women across the country live in fear of a knock on the door like Najia did last month.
Her daughter, Manizha, says she has not returned home since her mother's death.
He doesn't go out on the streets much.
"The Taliban do not let any woman go out without a male relative. Men are the only ones who can go out. They can go to work," he said.
Afghanistan Taliban