The world hardly talks about Afghanistan anymore.
August 15, 2021, the day the Taliban entered Kabul, the Afghan capital, is already a long way from international attention and the incessant flow of news.
"Don't forget us, please," asks Rabia Niazi, visibly nervous, in a Zoom interview.
The former executive director of the Gender Office of the Attorney General's Office has been trapped in the Taliban dictatorship.
After years dedicated to promoting equality in the workplace, processing complaints of sexual harassment and ensuring access to legal help for women, the lawyer lives in hiding and in terror.
She fears that the Taliban will discover her whereabouts and she will end up murdered like her father, also a lawyer in the Public Prosecutor's Office, was.
Niazi is one of five heads of gender departments of the former Afghan government who, despite having an evacuation pass to Spain, were unable to leave the country on the scheduled day due to the chaos and bombs at Kabul airport after the seizure of Taliban power.
Internet and, above all, WhatsApp, are the only bridge to the world that remains for these girls who have been left without life.
“In Afghanistan, women are now prisoners.
We cannot work or go out on the streets if we are not accompanied by our husband, father or brother”.
Zainab Khalili, gender director at the Ministry of Territorial Development and Urbanism for a decade, and her husband, a professional on Reporters Without Borders' list of threatened journalists, no longer have any savings and eat thanks to loans from friends.
The same professional and independent person who regularly held meetings with UN Women or Unicef, she now lives "stressed and afraid" of being in the spotlight.
A group of Afghan women stage a protest for their right to education and work in Kabul, Afghanistan, on October 10, 2021.Anadolu Agency (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
A story similar to that of Zainab and Rabia is described by Shaima Fazli, director of gender at the Ministry of Transport, -who has been fighting all her life for the right of women citizens to participate in elections-, Nargis Jeryan, expert in rights and immunity in the Independent Commission for Public Administration, and Adela Noori, director of gender at the Ministry of Finance;
all of them with evacuation safe-conduct to Spain.
"They have asked us not to forget them, so we are not going to stop until they come to Spain and are granted asylum," says Pilar Garrido, a retired lawyer and coordinator of a group of Spanish volunteers who, for eight months, They work tirelessly to rescue these five professionals and their families.
In total about 70 people.
They have filled their mouths saying that they were not going to leave anyone behind in Afghanistan but then they have not done anything
Pilar Garrido, retired lawyer and coordinator of a group of Spanish volunteers
The Spanish group informally calls itself the Afghanistan Taskforce.
The name in English could well correspond to that of a large team with a large budget, but nothing could be further from the truth: the group was made up of just nine women and one man with professions as disparate as salesperson, sociologist, humanitarian worker, journalist or documentary filmmaker.
Ordinary citizens who, however, have shouldered responsibilities at the level of politicians and diplomats.
"They have filled their mouths saying that they were not going to leave anyone behind in Afghanistan, but then they have not done anything," says Garrido.
achieving the impossible
The first great success of the team came last year, as soon as the Taliban entered Kabul: getting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to include them in the evacuation lists.
The promoter was Amelie Yan-Gouiffes, a French woman living in Spain who works for the United Nations.
She was there a little before the fall and received a first email from one of those responsible, asking for help before the arrival of the Taliban regime.
Yan-Gouiffes met them in 2017 when they were her students in a leadership course sponsored by UN Women and the Afghan government, which she taught.
Members of the Afghanistan Taskforce group. EL PAÍS
The humanitarian worker contacted friends and acquaintances all over the world.
This is how Luis (who prefers to remain anonymous), a documentary filmmaker, pulled political contacts at a regional level in Spain and, in record time, achieved safe conduct for all those affected.
Meanwhile, in parallel, the word was spreading and the support group in Spain was growing.
Initially, it was about organizing to support them upon their arrival in Madrid.
"It was a blow, we never imagined that they would not get on the plane," says Alexia Rahona, an NGO worker and member of the team.
The chaos and the terrorist attack at the airport in the August days scheduled for the evacuation left them all on the ground.
Since then, Adela Noori, director of the gender unit of the Ministry of Finance, has had to change her address several times.
Her husband disappeared two years ago in an area ruled by the Taliban and she and her children are threatened. "My family and I are at risk every time we go out for food."
My family and I are at risk every time we go out for food
Adela Noori, director of the gender unit of the Ministry of Finance in Afghanistan
Following the failed evacuation, Yan-Gouiffes contacted various representatives of the United Nations, the EU, and international human rights and humanitarian organizations.
However, emails and exchanges with highly engaged people in these organizations gradually went unreplied.
“I felt disappointed.
International cooperation trained these women, creating gender departments in each ministry, cannon fodder for the Taliban even before they came to power, and isn't there a responsibility to protect their lives and support them to rebuild another Afghanistan? ”, She reflects her.
recent victories
After the initial bump, the team has continued working.
Since September of last year they have managed to get UNHCR and Amnesty International to put the experts on their case lists, in addition to the involvement of organizations such as the Club of 25, the Feminist Platform for Afghanistan and the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR). ).
To do this, they have taken advantage of any opportunity for contact, sent many emails and, above all, have learned not to be disappointed by the silence and abandonment of institutions that they counted on.
In the name of order and transparency, they work with martial discipline.
For each meeting there is an agenda and, at the end of each one, a written report of what was agreed upon.
For all the volunteers, the best thing is direct contact with the women they are helping.
Every Sunday at five in the afternoon, Spanish time, the team and the Afghans see each other's faces via Zoom to tell each other the progress or, if there is nothing new, simply to see each other.
Every Sunday session with Afghan women by Zoom.
The meetings have generated familiarity.
"For Pilar's (Garrido) birthday they sent a video with the children singing happy birthday," says Josefina Martín, who invests her time as an unemployed person doing something she believes in.
"Seeing each other's faces is essential so that they don't feel abandoned, and it gives us strength to continue" adds Esther Pino, another member of the team.
The great subject of the last meetings is how to obtain funds.
The Afghans have run out of savings and the group has started putting in 100 euros per head per month.
What they do not know is how they will pay for the flights to Spain for the women and their families.
And it is that now, the immediate objective is to support those that are managing to cross into neighboring countries.
Zhainab Khalili and part of her family have just arrived in Tehran and have an appointment with the Spanish embassy shortly.
For their part, Nargis Jeryan and Shaima Fazli managed to enter Pakistan a few months ago on short-stay visas.
The abandonment of these women is blatant.
Europe has to open a humanitarian corridor for them
Noor Ammar Lamarty, jurist and founder of the Women by Women association
March has brought new victories.
With the support of the team, which has written and translated documents and advised on the preparation of interviews with consular officials, Jeryan and his family and Fazli have been granted visas to travel to Spain.
After experiencing terror in Kabul and having to sleep on the floor of a dilapidated house in Islamabad – paid for by one of the team members – Nargis Jeryan sees the light at the end of the tunnel.
"I do not regret anything.
I feel very proud of everything I have done for the women and girls of my country.”
And it is precisely because of their work as human rights defenders that the international community owes them protection from the Taliban threat, as recalled by Noor Ammar Lamarty, founder of the Women by Women association.
The young jurist has collaborated
pro bono
drafting a document that accompanies the visa application and the subsequent request for asylum in Spain.
“The abandonment of these women is flagrant.
Europe has to open a humanitarian corridor for them”.
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