A glimpse of life for women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule

A few months ago, pho­to­jour­nal­ist Kiana Hay­eri and researcher Mélis­sa Cor­net trav­elled to the Mawoud Acad­e­my school in Kab­ul. It was a heavy jour­ney – Hay­eri had pre­vi­ous­ly vis­it­ed the school under heart­break­ing cir­cum­stances. ​“I first report­ed on it for the New York Times after it was attacked by a sui­cide bomber in Octo­ber 2022,” Hay­eri says. ​“Then they were attacked one more time and we did a crowd­fun­der, so I was very involved with the school.”

The major­i­ty of its stu­dents are women and from the minor­i­ty Haz­ara com­mu­ni­ty, who have been fac­ing increased per­se­cu­tion and vio­lence as the Tal­iban have tight­ened their grip in Afghanistan. Despite the chal­lenges, the pair found a rebuilt and thriv­ing school and were greet­ed with warmth when they arrived. ​“All these new stu­dents knew about my pres­ence,” she con­tin­ues. ​“And they brought a cake – per­son­al­ly it touched me, it real­ly moved me.”

It was a rare instance of joy for Hay­eri and Cor­net, with­in a land­scape where such moments are becom­ing hard­er to come by. The pair were trav­el­ling around Afghanistan as part of a six-month jour­ney to report on the chang­ing sit­u­a­tion for women in the coun­try since the Tal­iban had tak­en con­trol in 2021. Now, their project NO WOMAN’S LAND has been award­ed the 14^th Carmi­gnac Pho­to­jour­nal­ism Award, with the project to be exhib­it­ed at the Réfec­toire des Corde­lieres in Paris from Octo­ber 25 until Novem­ber 18.

Both Hay­eri and Cor­net have been liv­ing and work­ing in Afghanistan for sev­er­al years. Cor­net first trav­elled to the coun­try in 2018 to research women’s rights in the coun­try while Hay­eri moved in 2014. When the Tal­iban seized con­trol of Kab­ul, and ulti­mate­ly the whole of the coun­try in August 2021, both Hay­eri and Cor­net left, before return­ing in the months after.

While con­duct­ing their project, the pair inter­viewed and pho­tographed over 100 women in sev­en dif­fer­ent provinces. In doing so, they illu­mi­nate per­son­al sto­ries of women from across Afghanistan’s diverse soci­ety, which is made up of a lay­ered and diverse fab­ric of expe­ri­ences. ​“Afghanistan is mas­sive – it’s very dif­fer­ent region by region,” Cor­net explains. ​“One thing that def­i­nite­ly has changed is that the war has come to an end, so there’s no active fight­ing. For women in some of the rur­al areas – say, Kan­da­har or Hel­mand where they saw heavy fight­ing over the last decade, they’re much more at peace.”

For oth­ers, it’s been a con­stant­ly evolv­ing pic­ture, with new decrees restrict­ing their abil­i­ty to move freely in pub­lic with­out male chap­er­ones. In 2022 the Tal­iban shut down schools and fur­ther edu­ca­tion estab­lish­ments for women above sixth grade. Most recent­ly, at the end of August, a new rule was announced ban­ning women’s bare faces and voic­es from being heard in public.

“The year after the fall [of Kab­ul], in a weird way, things were not as bad as we thought they would have been,” Cor­net says. ​“The Tal­iban were reas­sur­ing peo­ple that women would have their rights, and in that first year women were work­ing, going back to uni­ver­si­ty, school, and jour­nal­ists were work­ing pret­ty freely. It real­ly changed after the two-year anniversary.”

With each new decree, the sit­u­a­tion becomes increas­ing­ly hope­less and repress­ing. ​“By the end of the project, the over­whelm­ing con­clu­sion was that [many women] have absolute­ly no hope that things are going to improve now unless they leave the coun­try or the Tal­iban leave,” says Cor­net. ​“We spoke to a ther­a­pist and she was explain­ing how cas­es she has [seen] of anx­i­ety, OCD and sui­ci­dal ten­den­cies have skyrocketed.”

Despite this there are glimpses of small pock­ets of resilience, resis­tance and hope with­in the sto­ries and pic­tures from NO WOMAN’S LAND. The pair spoke to a group of teenage girls who would find savvy ways to meet up in pri­vate, while oth­ers are con­tin­u­ing to pro­vide edu­ca­tion. ​“We vis­it­ed a cou­ple of under­ground schools,” says Hay­eri. ​“Right now, even if they grad­u­ate there’s no uni­ver­si­ty and they can’t hold a job, but these under­ground schools carve some space for the girls to come out of their homes and keep their minds busy and learn something.”

When Cor­net and Hay­eri revis­it­ed the Mawoud Acad­e­my they found a dynam­ic learn­ing envi­ron­ment, and a bea­con for opti­mism. ​“Right now, this school has 700 female high school stu­dents, they go to school in day­light and they study the Amer­i­can cur­ricu­lum,” Hay­eri explains. ​“The fundrais­er we did with the sto­ry years ago con­nect­ed them with a school in San Diego, which got involved with them and helped cre­ate the curriculum.

“It was very joy­ful to see class­es packed, girls were keen, curi­ous – they were like sponges,” she con­tin­ues. ​“The plan is that they’ll do the same exams that they do in Amer­i­ca and walk away with a diplo­ma, which will open many doors for them – that pro­vides some hope for us.”

NO WOMAN’S LAND by Mélis­sa Cor­net and Kiana Hay­eri will be on view at the Réfec­toire des Corde­lieres in Paris from Octo­ber 25 until Novem­ber 18, 2024.

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