I crossed the border into Afghanistan from Iran one month after the Taliban seized Kabul. I could no longer handle reading, sharing posts or retweeting news about Afghanistan. I could no longer look at the agony without even touching it. I needed to witness the situation with my own eyes.
I managed to get the visa of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan at the border by pretending I was going to visit relatives in Herat, in the west of the country. It was my first trip abroad since the pandemic and it might be my last as an Iranian holding a passport stamped by the Taliban. But it did not matter, I had to be in Afghanistan at any price.
Perhaps no woman on Earth can relate to an Afghan woman more than an Iranian. With shared language and culture, we know what it means when a political power transfer happens and men in power decide on women’s issues. We know that when those men say that ‘proper systems are in place to ensure the safety of women’, it means that they are going to gradually ignore us.
