In mid-June, 17-year-old Shakiba* was arrested by the Taliban’s morality police (the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice) along with dozens of other women. Her alleged crime was “improper hijab.”

Shakiba was fully covered in a chadar namaz—a full-body prayer veil—but she was wearing a little eye makeup, and that was enough for the morality police to detain her.

Shakiba has cancer. Her mother knew makeup was forbidden under the new rules, but she had allowed her daughter small joys in what might be her final days.

A few years earlier, when Shakiba was just 13, her drug-addicted father abandoned the family to marry another woman. Left alone and struggling to feed her children, Shakiba’s mother was forced to arrange her marriage to an older man in Iran. At 16, Shakiba gave birth to her first child.

Soon afterward, she began suffering severe neck pain. After multiple examinations, doctors in Iran diagnosed her with cancer. Her husband and his family refused to support her treatment, saying they could not afford it, and sent her back to her mother in Afghanistan.

Once home, Shakiba’s mother desperately gathered money from relatives and neighbors to take her daughter to Pakistan for chemotherapy. After returning from treatment, the mother tried everything possible to make Shakiba’s remaining days as happy as possible.

One day, while Shakiba was out shopping, the Taliban’s morality police arrested her.

Her mother rushed to the authorities, pleading for her release and explaining that her daughter was gravely ill. The Taliban initially did not believe her until she presented all the medical reports. Eventually, they agreed to release Shakiba — but only, her mother said, after the payment of 13,000 Afghanis (AFN), an enormous sum for the struggling family.

Once again, Shakiba’s mother turned to relatives and neighbors, begging for help to secure her daughter’s freedom. After 48 hours in detention, Shakiba was finally released.

From the moment she came home, Shakiba has been deeply changed. The only thing she says is that she wants to return to Iran—to the husband who had sent her away. No matter how much her mother tries to reason with her, explaining that he does not want her back, Shakiba refuses to listen.

Her mother is tormented by worry about what happened to her daughter during those two days in prison. Shakiba will not speak about it at all. She has become almost completely silent and will not describe where she was held or what she endured. Her mother fears she may have been tortured, sexually assaulted, or threatened into silence.

In recent months, the Taliban’s morality police in Herat province have intensified their crackdown on women. They have set up checkpoints at crossroads, drag women into vans, and arrest them for hijab violations. In November 2025, they attempted to force all women in Herat — including government teachers, doctors, nurses, and patients — to wear the full burqa.

On June 5, an announcement was sent to mosques across the province ordering women to wear chadar namaz along with masks covering their entire bodies, and forbidding makeup and perfume. One clause even claimed that any woman who wears perfume “has committed adultery.”

In the immediate aftermath, as mass detentions began, an audio recording attributed to an employee of the governor’s office, circulated on social media, described a meeting led by Herat governor Noor Ahmad Islamjar at which officials planned enforcement of the hijab directive. The governor himself later publicly acknowledged the arrests, claiming the detained women had “psychological” problems.

In my view, these statements amounted to the acknowledgment of a systematic campaign to further restrict and humiliate women.

Yet the Taliban are still invited into international conversations, and the EU rolls out the red carpet while ignoring their violations of human rights and women’s rights.

Shakiba’s silence haunts me—and it made me remember a different group of women, in a different part of Herat, who refused to be silent. Years ago, my father was invited to visit Pista Laiq in the spring. He described the breathtaking beauty of the 90,000 hectares of land stretching between Herat and Badghis provinces—rolling hills covered in vibrant green and filled with wild pistachio trees—often described as the largest such forest in the world.

His vivid description filled everyone with excitement, and my father finally agreed that we would go. Our friend warned us that the roads were dusty and badly damaged, making the journey difficult. Still, we prepared everything and set off early the next morning.

Some stretches of the road were so broken that the car had to crawl along ridges overlooking dangerous valleys. We finally reached the Pista Laiq area at 1:00 a.m. In the darkness, we couldn’t see the beauty of the place, but we could make out the hills covered with groups of people—men, families, and tents pitched everywhere. It was incredibly crowded. No matter how far we drove, there was no empty space left for us to set up our own tent.

Exhausted after the long journey, we drove for over an hour before finding a small empty patch in the middle of a valley. We quickly pitched our tents and tried to rest. In the morning, we realized our spot was right next to several groups of men. As a family, we felt uncomfortable and decided to move toward the end of the valley for a safer place where the women could move around freely.

But as soon as we tried to go further, the locals blocked our path.

Who were these locals? A group of just 10 to 15 women and children. Even today, I can hardly believe what I saw. They had no guns, no sticks—nothing. There were no men or boys among them. They simply stood in a line in front of us, our relatives, and other groups of men who also wanted to proceed. With nothing but their presence and words, they refused to let anyone pass.

I was upset, like everyone else. I thought, This isn’t their private property. We’ve come a long way and won’t stay for weeks. But they wouldn’t listen to anyone. Their eyes burned with unshakable determination. Women and girls of all ages—old and young—stood fearless. At times, they even stepped forward aggressively toward the men.

My father eventually decided it was better to leave. We drove for another hour until we found a different empty spot. Later, someone explained the reason behind their fierce stand:

Every year, local residents restrict access to the pistachio forests shortly before harvest season. Each family claims and protects one valley—or sometimes more—depending on what they can manage. This ensures that once the crop ripens, they can collect it properly without interference.

After hearing this, I understood and respected the right of those women to stand their ground.

Years have passed since that day. Previously, whenever I remembered the incident, it upset me that they wouldn’t let us stay. But now, with the current situation in Herat—where women are being arrested for nothing and the country has become a prison for women—I often think of those women. I remember how strong and powerful they were as they protected their land.

Sometimes I feel I have never seen a gaze so steadfast and resolute anywhere else. I wish I too had their courage. I wish there were a thousand women like them. Or that they could come to the cities and teach other women their courage, bravery, commitment, and determination — the same spirit with which they fought for what they had worked so hard to protect and did not want to lose.

Yet we women in the cities only witness more loss every day, and no one does anything.

When the Taliban created their own version of Iran’s morality police to arrest women for “improper hijab,” why didn’t Afghan women adopt the strategy of Iranian women in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement and reclaim their freedoms through smart civil disobedience against hijab restrictions?

No one is going to rescue Afghan women. Through silence and obedience, none of the rights we have lost will return. This silence only makes the oppressive Taliban stronger and encourages them to launch even more attacks on women and their rights. Every time a new decree attacks women’s rights, I wonder if there is anything left for them to take from women. Then the Taliban leaders issue an even more ruthless decree and prove that yes, there is still more.

I don’t know where those fearless women of Pista Laiq are today. I wish they could come and teach thousands of Afghan women—women like Shakiba—how to fight for themselves and their rights with the same ferocity.

*Shakiba is a pseudonym used for security purposes.