By Maryam Safi, Research Fellow, RWI Afghanistan Programme
Recently, I was invited to speak on The Breakfast Show on Voice of Islam Radio to discuss the topic “Nobody Comes for Us: Afghan Women Trapped in a Broken Mental Health System,” from a human rights perspective. The invitation came at a time when I was conducting interviews and collecting data for my ongoing research, “Schooling Under the Taliban Era: Exploring the Use of Violence in Education in Afghanistan,” as part of my fellowship with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs.
During the interview, I was asked to comment on the Afghan state’s failure to uphold the basic rights and dignity of women confined in mental health institutions such as Qala[1] in Kabul. To understand the heartbreaking stories of these women, I encourage everyone to read journalist Mahjooba Nowrouzi’s powerful BBC Afghan Service article from Kabul, which sheds light on the reality of women living within those walls.
The word Qala—meaning “fortress”—struck me deeply. It made me picture not only about the women confined in those institutions but also the women I have been interviewing for my research, and in truth, about all women across Afghanistan. For many of them, life itself feels like being trapped in a Qala, a fortress, built by fear, reinforced by silence, and maintained by indifference.
According to UNESCO, since 2021 the Taliban has issued over 70 decrees restricting women’s rights and freedoms in Afghanistan. Education for girls beyond the sixth grade, or over the age of 12, is prohibited, leaving Afghanistan as the only nation in the world where girls cannot access secondary education. [2] UN Women reports that 78 percent of Afghan women have no access to education, employment, or training opportunities.[3] Women have been forced out of most workplaces, restricted from parks and gyms, and silenced in every public space. They are not allowed to travel without a male guardian and must follow a strict Islamic dress code whenever they leave their homes.[4] The once fragile progress made toward equality has been replaced by a reality of isolation and invisibility.
When I talk to women about children’s education, I can hear the heavy, heartbreaking pain and worry in their voices. The fear that mothers feel for their daughters’ unknown futures shakes you to your core. Many of them want to speak about far more than what falls within the scope of my research, hoping their voices might reach the outside world. On top of this, unemployment and poverty have become daily struggles. Reports show that poverty in Afghanistan has reached alarming levels, with over 97 percent of the population now living below the poverty line. At the same time, 90 percent of women have been pushed out of the workforce, and only 7 percent have been employed outside their homes in the past year. Around 69 percent of Afghans are unemployed and without a source of income, while child labor, particularly in handicrafts and scavenging, continues to rise.[5]
Yet, even within this confinement, Afghan women continue to resist. For many, the internet and social media has become their only tool of hope and a fragile lifeline that connects them to the outside world and keeps their dreams alive. They raise their voices in secret classrooms, teach each other online, and stand in quiet defiance of the walls built around them. However, the recent 48 hours of internet and phone networks blockout imposed by the Taliban left the people feeling hopeless.[6] Even though the internet and phone networks were restored after 48 hours, the blackout left a lingering sense of fear and uncertainty, as people worried it might happen again.
Afghanistan may have become a dark and isolated Qala, fortress, for its women, but their courage continues to pierce through the walls built to contain them. As long as their voices, resilience, and spirit endure, there remains hope that freedom will one day rise beyond the shadows.
[1] Qala is the largest of only a handful of facilities in the country dedicated to helping women with mental illnesses. It is run by the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) located on a hill in the west of the Afghan capital, Kabul, behind a steel gate topped with barbed wire, lies a place few locals speak of, and even fewer visit.
[2] ttps://www.unesco.org/en/articles/unesco-gives-voice-afghan-girls-and-women-and-calls-their-rights-be-restoredHassan#2023Haroon#2025
[3] https://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/in-focus/afghanistan
[4] https://www.rferl.org/a/un-taliban-erasing-afghan-women-from-public-life/33501215.html
[5] https://8am.media/eng/taliban-rule-and-the-grip-of-poverty-nearly-70-of-the-population-unemployed/#:~:text=A%20majority%20of%20citizens%20of,deprived%20people%20of%20their%20livelihoods.
[6] https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/03/asia/afghanistan-internet-shutdown-intl-hnk-dst