How life has changed for the Afghans who stayed behind after Taliban takeover

A year later, women's rights have been severely curtailed, the economy has collapsed and millions are hungry

A member of the Afghan security personnel looks distraught as he stands guard at the site of a car bomb explosion near the defence minister's home in Kabul, on August 4, 2021. AFP

Security officials inspect the scene of an attack on Dawa Khan Menapal, the head of the Afghan government's information centre, in Kabul on August 6, 2021. Taliban militants shot him dead. EPA

People are stranded at the Pakistani-Afghan border which has been closed by the Taliban, who have taken control of the Afghan side, on August 9, 2021. EPA

US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad (2nd L) arrives at a hotel in Qatar's capital Doha for a meeting on the escalating conflict in Afghanistan, on August 10, 2021. AFP

Taliban fighters driving through Herat, Afghanistan's third-biggest city, on August 13, 2021 after under-siege government forces had pulled out the previous day. AFP

Taliban militants gather in the main square after taking control of Kandahar, Afghanistan, on August 13, 2021. The fall of Kandahar came hours after the Taliban had captured Herat. EPA

Afghanistan's president Ashraf Ghani and acting defence minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi visit military corps in Kabul on August 14, 2021. Reuters

Internally displaced families from northern provinces, who fled from their homes due to the fighting between Taliban and Afghan security forces, take shelter in a public park in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 14, 2021. EPA

People at the border checkpoint at Chaman, Pakistan on August 15, 2021. Pakistani authorities had reopened the frontier with Afghanistan on August 13 after several days of closure. EPA

Afghan police on duty on August 15, 2021 after the Taliban had taken over Kandahar. The militants have by this stage reached the outskirts of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. EPA

Ahmadullah Muttaqi, the Taliban's director for information and culture, talks to journalists after the government in Kandahar had surrendered to the militants. EPA

Taliban fighters and local people sit on an Afghan National Army armoured vehicle on a street in Jalalabad province on August 15, 2021. AFP

Afghan families flee Kabul on August 15, 2021. The Taliban said they do not intend to enter Kabul 'by force or war, but to negotiate with the other side to enter peacefully". Getty Images

Tens of thousands of people attempt to flee Afghanistan to escape the hardline rule expected under the Taliban, on August 15, 2021. AFP

Taliban fighters take control of the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul, after the president Ashraf Ghani had fled the country, on August 15, 2021. AP

Hundreds of people run alongside a US Air Force transport plane on the runway of the international airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021, desperate to escape the Taliban capture of their country. Some held on to the jet as it took off and fell to their death. AP

Thousands of Afghans rush to the Hamid Karzai International Airport as they try to flee the Afghan capital of Kabul, on August 16, 2021. Getty Images

A US soldier points his gun at a man at Kabul airport on August 16, 2021, after a swift end to Afghanistan's 20-year war. Thousands of people mobbed the airport in a bid to flee. AFP

Crowds on the tarmac of Kabul International Airport, Afghanistan, on August 16, 2021. EPA

People clamber on top a plane at the Kabul airport on August 16, 2021. AFP

These Afghan passengers made it. They sit inside a plane and wait to leave Kabul. AFP

Afghan women, holding placards, gather to demand the protection of women's rights in front of the Presidential Palace in Kabul, on August 17, 2021. Getty Images

British citizens living in Afghanistan board a military plane to leave Kabul Airport, on August 16, 2021. Reuters

Luggage belonging to Afghan people, who were waiting to be evacuated. at the site of two suicide bombs, which killed scores of people including 13 US troops, at Kabul airport on August 27, 2021. AFP

Afghans, including those who worked for the US, Nato, the European Union and the United Nations, wait outside Hamid Karzai International Airport to flee the country, after Taliban took control of Kabul, on August 17, 2021. EPA

People queue at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border point in Chaman on August 17, 2021 to cross back to Afghanistan. AFP

People wait to board a French military transport plane on August 17, 2021 to escape Kabul and Taliban rule. AFP

Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesman, gives his first press conference in Kabul on August 17, 2021. The new leadership said it would not seek revenge on those who had fought against them and would protect the rights of Afghan women within the rules of Sharia. EPA

Young men who say they deserted the Afghan military trudge through the countryside in Tatvan, eastern Turkey, on August 17, 2021. Turkey was concerned about increased migration across the Iranian border as Afghans fled from the Taliban. AP

A young demonstrator at a vigil in support of Afghanistan at the West Los Angeles Federal Building, California on August 17, 2021. EPA

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan holds a press briefing to talk about the recent events in Afghanistan, at the White House on August 17,2021. EPA

A Taliban fighter walks past a beauty salon with images of women defaced using spray paint in Shar-e-Naw in Kabul on August 18, 2021. AFP

People among the first evacuees from Kabul, arrive at Frankfurt International Airport in western Germany in the early hours of August 18, 2021. AFP

A transport plane evacuating refugees out of Afghanistan lands at Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai, August 19, 2021. Pawan Singh / The National

Afghanistan's former president Ashraf Ghani talks in video message, somewhere in the UAE, on August 18, 2021, in his first media appearance since the fall of Kabul only days earlier. Reuters

Displaced children wait for the next flight at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul on August 19, 2021. AFP

An Afghan man waves a national flag to celebrate the 102nd Independence Day of Afghanistan in Kabul on August 19, 2021, days after the Taliban's military takeover of the country. AFP

The US military helps to reunite families at Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 20, 2021. AFP

A US Marine comforts an infant while they wait for the mother during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 21, 2021. Reuters

New personnel in the Afghan security forces take part in military training in Panjshir province on August 21, 2021. AFP

US President Joe Biden speaks to his national security team during a briefing on the situation in Afghanistan, on August 22, 2021, in Washington. AFP

Mexico's Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard welcomes members of Afghanistan's robotics team after arriving in Mexico to apply for humanitarian status on August 24, 2021. Reuters

Belongings of Afghan people, who were evacuated from Kabul, are laid on the ground at Torrejon Military Air Base on August 24, 2021 in Madrid. Getty Images

Volunteers and medical staff unload bodies from a pickup truck outside a hospital after two powerful explosions, which killed at least six people, outside the airport in Kabul on August 26, 2021. AFP

Flag-draped coffins of service members killed in action are loaded on to a transport aircraft during a ramp ceremony at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 27, 2021. Reuters

Afghan evacuees at the Emirates Humanitarian City, Abu Dhabi, on August 28, 2021. Victor Besa / The National

Smoke billows after an explosion near the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul on August 29, 2021. EPA

A vigil for Max Soviak, one of 13 US service members killed in the airport suicide bombing in Afghanistan's capital Kabul, in Berlin Heights, Ohio on August 29, 2021. Reuters

A Taliban member stands guard near a vehicle which was used to fire rockets at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 30, 2021. EPA

World Health Organisation supplies land in Afghanistan. Photo: WHO

Major Gen Chris Donahue, commander of the US Army 82nd Airborne Division, XVIII Airborne Corps, boards a C-17 cargo plane at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 30, 2021. His departure closes the US mission to evacuate US citizens, Afghan Special Immigrant Visa applicants and vulnerable Afghans. AFP

Fireworks after the last US aircraft took off from the airport in Kabul early on August 31, 2021, signalling its complete withdrawal after 20 years in the country. AFP

Afghans wait for the banks to open in Kabul on August 31, 2021. AFP

An Afghan Air Force A-29 attack aircraft inside a hangar at the airport in Kabul on August 31, 2021, after the US pulled all its troops out of the country. AFP

Taliban fighters sit in the cockpit of an Afghan Air Force aircraft at the airport in Kabul on August 31, 2021. AFP

An Afghan resistance movement and anti-Taliban uprising forces rest as they patrol on a hilltop in Panjshir province on September 1,2021. Panjshir remains the last major holdout of anti-Taliban forces led by Ahmad Massoud, son of the famed mujahideen leader Ahmed Shah Massoud. AFP

The UAE sends a plane carrying urgent medical and food aid to Afghanistan, as part of its contribution to provide the basic and necessary needs of thousands of Afghan families, especially the most vulnerable groups such as women, children and the elderly, September 3, 2021. Wam

Afghan women's rights defenders and civil activists protest to call on the Taliban for the preservation of their achievements and education, in front of the presidential palace in Kabul on September 3, 2021. Reuters

The main money exchange market in Kabul reopens on September 4, 10 days after the Taliban takeover. Currency dealers have been hit hard by the fall in value of the Afghani currency. EPA

Passengers board a plane as domestic flights resume across Afghanistan, at Ahmad Shah Baba International Airport in Kandahar on September 5, 2021. EPA

Protesters reflected in the sunglasses of a demonstrator during a rally in support of Afghanistan's people after the takeover of the country by the Taliban, at the Place de la Republique, in Paris on September 5, 2021. AFP

A Taliban fighter stands guard at a market in Kabul on September 5, 2021. AFP

A suspected ISIS member sits blindfolded in a Taliban Special Forces' car in Kabul on September 5, 2021. Reuters

Children stand outside the former US embassy in Kabul where the banner of the 'Islamic Emirate' has replaced previous murals, on September 8, 2021. Stefanie Glinski for The National

A veiled student speaks to a gathering of female students before a pro-Taliban rally at the Shaheed Rabbani Education University in Kabul on September 11, 2021. AFP

Taliban fighters take a selfie after they stormed and overran the home of the Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum in the Sherpur neighborhood of Kabul. on September 11, 2021. AFP

Members of Afghanistan's national girls football team arrive at the Pakistan Football Federation in Lahore on September 15, 2021, a month after the hardline Taliban swept back into power. AFP

Afghan students separated by a partition attend a class at Mirwais Neeka University in Kandahar on September 20, 2021. The Taliban had officially announced the segregation of male and female students in all government and private universities. EPA

A young girl from Afghanistan hides under a truck carrying fruit and vegetables as she attempts to smuggle herself over the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan on September 12, 2021. Everyday dozens of children from Afghanistan smuggle themselves over the border into Pakistan to sell Paan and other goods before smuggling themselves back again. At least one child is injured each day trying to cross the border like this. Oliver Marsden for The National

Afghan girls at a school in Kandahar on September 26, 2021. AFP

Afghans gather outside the passport office after Taliban officials announced they will start issuing passports to its citizens again, in Kabul, October 6, 2021. Reuters

Sohail Ahmadi, an Afghan baby boy who went missing during the disordered evacuation process in Kabul after the takeover by the Taliban in August 2021, is reunited with his grandfather and aunt on January 10, 2022. EPA

Zakia, an economics student who dropped out of university after the Taliban took power, at her home on the outskirts of Kabul on January 24, 2022. AFP

A burqa-clad woman walks along a street in Kabul on May 7, 2022. The Taliban had just imposed some of the harshest restrictions on Afghanistan's women since they seized power, ordering them to cover fully in public, ideally with the traditional burqa. AFP

An Afghan vendor displays a burqa at his shop at Mandawi market in Kabul on May 8, 2022. AFP

Khatira Ahmadi (L) and Tehmina (R), Afghan presenters at Tolo TV, read news at the studio in Kabul on May 23. Female television presenters and reporters in Afghanistan appeared with their faces covered to comply with a mandate issued by the Taliban. EPA

Afghan women prisoners in Kandahar on July 26. EPA

A year after the Taliban swept through Kabul, Afghans who chose to stay behind as thousands fled are coming to terms with the impact of their decision.

Women's rights severely curtailed, a collapsed economy and millions experiencing hunger have left some wondering if they made the right call.

Before the Taliban takeover, 23-year-old Susan Hamidi worked as a legal adviser, providing support to Afghan women dealing with domestic violence. She had also launched her own YouTube channel, in 2019, covering social as well as entertainment stories from her city of Kabul.

“I used to work as a video producer at a media company as well, and was very active in the civil society groups,” the mother of one said. “Despite the increasing security issues, there was hope. My husband and I had just started our small family.

“I never imagined that we would lose everything within days. I still can’t believe it sometimes … that Afghanistan is once again under the Taliban control.”

Ms Hamidi was very young when the Taliban controlled the country in the late 1990s and had not experienced the curtailment of women’s rights by the extremist group. Now her baby looks set to grow up under the newest Taliban regime after US and Nato troops left Afghanistan in August last year.

The group have also been cracking down on the Afghan media environment that has grown significantly in the last two decades. Ms Hamidi lost her job, was forced to limit her YouTube channel, and became very cautious about her movement.

“Everything Afghanistan achieved in 20 years we lost,” she said. “Our basic rights, women’s freedoms, our choice, but most of all our diversity and the sense of unity, it has all been eroded.” She added that the city that she had once felt she owned was unfamiliar to her.

Even those newer to Afghanistan hoped to continue living a somewhat normal life under the Taliban. Raha Amiri, 18, managed to spend just two free years in Kabul after returning from the neighbouring country her parents fled to during in the 1990s.

Zakia, an economics student who had to abandon her studies when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August, at her home in the capital Kabul, where women are coming together to stand against the hardline regime. All photos: AFP

She is part of a growing group that started with 15 activists, mostly women in their 20s who already knew each other. Now a network of dozens of women work in secret to organise protests.

Hoda Khamosh, a published poet and former NGO worker who organised workshops to help empower women, vets newcomers to the group to ensure they can be trusted.

One test she sets is to ask them to prepare banners or slogans at short notice - she can sense passion for the cause from women who deliver quickly.

Other tests yield even clearer results. Hoda says one potential recruit was given a fake date and time for a demonstration. The Taliban turned up ahead of the supposed protest, and all contact was cut with the woman suspected of tipping off officials.

A core group of the activists use a dedicated phone number to co-ordinate on the day of a protest. That number is later disconnected to ensure it is not being tracked.

"We usually carry an extra scarf or an extra dress. When the demonstration is over, we change our clothes so we cannot be recognised," says Hoda.

She has changed her phone number several times and her husband has received threats. "We could still be harmed, it's exhausting. But all we can do is persevere," she says.

“I returned even though my parents protested. I fell in love with Kabul, and I wanted to study in my own country. I was preparing for kankor [university entrance] exams to enrol for a degree in computer science,” she told The National.

Ms Amiri never had the chance to finish high school as the Taliban closed schools for girls over grade 6, effectively banning millions of Afghan girls from education.

“Its been a year, and they haven’t permitted us back and I can’t get a diploma, without which I cannot begin my university,” she said.

Both women, headstrong and unwilling to give up, joined civil protest groups in Kabul, meeting regularly to demand their basic rights. Ms Hamidi, along with several other women and colleagues formed the Spontaneous Movement of Afghan Women and mobilised protests across the city. For many months, regular demonstrations, almost always consisting entirely of women, chanted slogans of “work, food and freedom” on the streets of Kabul.

“Under the rule of the Taliban, you cannot do anything that does not benefit them. It’s not just about women, but all Afghans are affected and suffering,” Ms Hamidi said.

The economic collapse has left many businesses on the brink of bankruptcy, creating widespread unemployment.

“I became a beggar overnight,” said Mohammad Rashid Anwari, 39, an Afghan business owner who until a year ago was financially well off, often contributing to charities and a respected community leader.

“When the sanctions came down after the Taliban takeover, we lost all our business with the international companies and NGO we used to supply to,” he said. “Many of the companies left, some even took the money they owed us. I had no choice but to close my business.”

Mr Anwari said that while the loss of foreign aid has deeply hurt the Afghan economy, Taliban policies haven’t helped the private sector either. “I am not here to criticise the Taliban, but we can’t deny the fact they are not doing a good job with the economy. They took over a relatively stable economy and now people are starving. Families are selling their kids, so they have stale bread to survive.”

The financial and banking crises caused by the Taliban takeover and international sanctions against the militant group have plunged many Afghans into extreme poverty, with more than 20 million facing starvation, according to UN estimates.

Mr Anwari, who has taken up work as an electrician, is also struggling to make ends meet, or pay his children’s school fees. However, despite the challenges, he refused to leave the country even when he had the chance.

“I invested in Afghanistan with the hope of building this country, and I feel a sense of belonging and ownership I can’t find anywhere else,” he said. “I chose to stay because this is my country. I was born here, raised here, studied here and I will die here.”

But Ms Hamidi, like many others who stood up against the extremist group now running her beloved country, has been forced to flee.

“We were arrested, beaten, some were forced to make false confessions of being paid by foreigners, some others turned up dead. But we didn’t and haven’t stopped fighting,” said Ms Hamidi, who was among the women detained by the Taliban earlier this year.

She shared photos of bruises she suffered on her body from being beaten while in Taliban custody. “I was forced to leave Afghanistan for the safety of my son, I am a fugitive now in a country I worked so hard to build,” she said, choking back tears, from exile in a neighbouring country where she is in hiding.

“But I am still fighting.

“I will not betray or abandon my country. I will keep fighting until all Afghan girls are allowed to study, until the media is free again, and my people have their rights and dignity.”