Afghan Women on What They Left Behind

“In Afghanistan, women are all heroes. They are dying every day, but they are never giving up.”

— Laila, who moved to the U.S. in 2016

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Since the United States and its allies toppled the Taliban in 2001, the rights of Afghan women have animated much of the global narrative around the war. Even amid the devastation, there were recognizable signs of progress: Afghan girls going to school and Afghan women getting college degrees, taking jobs and participating more in public life. Burqas came off, billboards for beauty salons went up. Female journalists fearlessly questioned Taliban leaders on T.V. Other women became mayors and ambassadors. Bit by bit, slowly, steadily, women — though mostly in urban areas — wriggled out from under the Taliban’s conservative, theocratic thumb.

It took just days for much of that progress to come crashing down. Since the Taliban took back control of Afghanistan in August, each new day has brought new restrictions on women — now they can’t play sports and college classes will be segregated by gender — raising concerns that the country is rapidly regressing to a repressive past.

Today, it is precisely those women who broke from the traditional path who are most endangered. Many have gone into hiding. Hundreds have taken to the streets, protesting the regime, only to be met by the brute force of rifle butts and sticks. Others fled.

But to flee was nothing new. Afghan women and their families have long sought refuge in other parts of the world. Those who have fled have found themselves split between an unfamiliar future in an unfamiliar place and a past in a beloved country where career, family and community are left behind, out of reach.

The Times spoke with four women who have sought refuge in America. All four fled — some recently, some not — because they were endangered back home. The heartbreak is heavy, but they are not surprised: They knew the space that they had carefully carved out for themselves in society would quickly be eroded. They had warned of it all along.

The women’s last names and other identifying details are being withheld because they fear for the safety of their relatives still in Afghanistan. Conversations have been edited for clarity and length.

Farahnaz, 28

Arrived in the U.S. in February

As a TV journalist, I went to cover the peace negotiations with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, last October. When I was there, I interviewed Suhail Shaheen, the spokesman for the Taliban. I spoke to him without covering my hair and he was very uncomfortable — it was unintentional but that encounter became big news.

After the peace talks, the Taliban started targeting and assassinating journalists. A couple of my colleagues were killed, and I was told that I was also on the Taliban’s hit list. Security forces told me to stay at home and stay low. Those few days hiding in Kabul were the most difficult days of my life. I have never felt fear like that. When it was a little safer, I went to the French Embassy to get a visa and left Kabul immediately.

The day that Kabul fell to the Taliban, I shaved off all my…