Abandoned—How Life Went Dark for Afghan Women

For two decades, Afghan women and girls won several life-changing opportunities that women of the West may take for granted. These included their rights to earn an education, work, show their skin in public, and even walk freely outdoors. 

These freedoms were tragically stripped away on August 15, 2021, when the Biden-Harris Administration haphazardly withdrew the U.S.’s military presence from Afghanistan, leaving the country to fall to the Taliban. Afghan women and girls are now paying a heavy price.

“Women are oppressed. All their rights are taken away from them,” Azizullah Aziz, a former Afghan interpreter for the U.S. Military (JSOC), told IW Features. “They are used like the slaves back in the old days that people were using.”

Aziz and his family made a harrowing escape from their home in Kabul, Afghanistan, five days after the fall. They were rescued and resituated in a United Arab Emirates humanitarian center for eight months before finally making it to America.