"Afghan Women Don't Want To Be Saved. But They Demand To Be Heard" for Buzzfeed News (2019) by Kiana Hayeri

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"Afghan Women Don't Want To Be Saved. But They Demand To Be Heard" for Buzzfeed News (2019)

kiana hayeri

Sep 11, 2019

The women of Afghanistan would like to be heard.

Before the recent peace negotiations suddenly broke down — when President Donald Trump announced that he had canceled secret talks with the Taliban — women had been almost entirely sidelined from the conversation about the future of their country.

The US intervention in Afghanistan in 2001 was premised in part on liberating women from the restrictive rule of the Taliban. The last 18 years have seen some progress, and life has improved for some women, allowing them enroll in school, work, and explore simple personal freedoms previously denied to them.

But many of them now fear for the future.

We spoke with 18 women in the Afghan capital of Kabul about their concerns if the Taliban were to regain power:
18 Stunning Portraits Of Women In Kabul
“I will lose my identity as a human being, a woman, and an artist.”

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Kiana Hayeri

Also by Kiana Hayeri —

on National Geographic: A photographer gives an inside look at the fall of Kabul, her longtime home

on The New York Times: What Will Become of Afghanistan's Post-9/11 Generation?

The New York Times: Kabul's Sudden Fall to Taliban Ends U.S. Era in Afghanistan

The New York Times: U.S. Is Sending 3,000 Troops Back to Afghanistan to Begin Evacuations

Photoville 2020: Promises Written On The Ice, Left In The Sun

on NYTimes: At War: She Went to Prison for Killing Her Husband. The Pandemic Set Her Free.

The Washington Post: "˜There's no humanity left': A family buries a mother and her unborn child in Afghanistan

Tim Hetherington 'Visionary Award 2020: KIANA HAYERI

on NYT: Afghanistan's Next War

"Scarred and Weary, an Afghan Force Wonders: What Is Peace?" for The New York Times (2020)

For The New York Times Magazine (2020):"Now in Prison, They Feel Free."

Single Mothers of Afghanistan on Globe and Mail

"The TransAsia Train" for Polka Magazine (2013)