Fleeing Afghanistan:
"Experiencing the Dark Time: Caught Up In a Cage"

I wander from room to room, climb up and down the stairs and feel like a songbird whose wings have been ripped off and who keeps hurling itself against the bars of its dark cage. "Let me out, where there's fresh air and laughter!" a voice within me cries. I don't even bother to reply anymore, but lie down on the divan. Sleep makes the silence and the terrible fear go by more quickly, helps pass the time, since it's impossible to kill it. - Anne Frank, from her diary entry on 29 October 1943.

“Asma Setayesh” (not her real name) is an Afghan who lived in Kabul until November 2021. Just before the recent Taliban takeover, she worked at a government agency and with some nonprofits in Afghanistan. She was also active in her community, going to Rotary Club meetings and various professional and civil society networking events. She lived under the Taliban as a young girl many years ago, but when they were removed from power back in 2001, she was able to return to school, pursue university degrees and begin her career. She was able to study in Australia and the USA and went on networking and education trips hosted by various international groups in Eastern Europe and India. She very much believed that she was free to pursue these education and career goals, and did so openly.

This is her account of what life was like under the Taliban both the first time when they took over Afghanistan and then when they retook the country in August 2021, when the USA abandoned the country. The title, Experiencing the Dark time: Caught Up in A Cage, is hers.

She chose remain anonymous because her family that remains in Afghanistan be endangered by their association with her. She also is unsure of her immigration or refugee status in Australia.

Her essay below has been edited for clarity and grammar. She has reviewed all edits.

Experiencing the Dark time: Caught Up in A Cage

I have never dreamed that a day will come again that I had to hide and lock myself at my own house and live in fear, that the books I read and the English I taught at home would endanger me yet again. I thought those days were over. However, it has happened again, and it has tortured me much more than the first time, because this time, I am not a child, and because since the first time the Taliban took over Afghanistan, and was then removed, my country had made so much progress in so many ways in those twenty years. I thought we were a different country. I never thought I would see the same violence, the same dominance of warlords, and the same hatred, in power in my country again, but it is back.

The first Taliban regime:

I lost five years of my childhood the first time the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 1996. Before that year, I was a typical Afghan young girl: happy, adventurous, loving the outdoors, doing things I wanted to do, going to school. I even rode a bicycle. My father was a bright, open-minded person and my mother was educated and they both liked and supported the studies of all their children, including the girls.

All that changed when the Taliban took over that first time.

Being under the Taliban then, in the 1990s, was like a terrifying movie or a horrifying dream. My sisters and I couldn’t go to school. We could not leave my house. My sisters and I could not even be seen by neighbors. The streets were empty. We could not trust our neighbors. Every trip out of our house by a family member had to be carefully planned.

For those first many months after their takeover, I only heard about the Taliban; I had never seen them myself, in person. One day, I begged my brother to show me a Talib. He was scared and told me the Taliban would beat him if he is caught. I asked again and again. Finally, he went to our front veranda and he stayed there until a Talib appeared, walking down our street, and then my brother quietly called me to come look. I carefully walked out onto the veranda, bent down behind him, and peeked out from his back. I saw that Talib, on patrol in my neighborhood. Seeing him made the terror that I heard about from family all real to me – all the harassment, all the abductions, all the torture. I couldn’t eat for a days. I didn’t open my books. When my parents asked me to study and continue my reading and writings, I told them why and for what reason, I was a teen aged girl and I had no future. For many days and nights, for many many weeks, I was like this.

At last, with constant encouragement from my parents, I accepted the reality that I have to live in a cage, and I must do something to keep my sanity in that cage.

I decided to try to secretly teach English to girls in my neighborhood. My parents were able to safely contact girls from our neighborhood about my desire to teach them English. I told the mothers, through my parents, that if they wanted to bring their daughters to our house to learn, that they should come to our house solemnly as if they go to recite the Koran. I told them to hide their books when they came to our house. I told them they could not come altogether, that they had to come in pairs and at different times so that no one would suspect there was a gathering of any kind in my home. The students came, but I was always fearful. The first few weeks, I dreamed that our neighbors realized what I was doing and they informed the Taliban and that those terrorists came to arrest my father and my elder brother. When the girls came to our house, my father stayed in front of our house, subtly checking if any neighbor is around and watching. When the students wanted to leave my father again helped me to guide them to leave at different times. Another challenge was it was my first time teaching others. My father helped me a lot: he made a lesson plan for me for different classes and levels. He helped me construct lessons. Teaching gave me joy in my home, my cage, but I also lived in fear and confinement every day.

I did not have access to a TV, as the Taliban banned TV. Some people used secret TVs and used satellites with those TVs to get news. We couldn’t do this because we did not trust our neighbors. We feared they would see it and turn us into the Taliban. The main source of news was on the radio. We would listen to BBC Persian news to know what is going around our country. It was always horrible news about what the Taliban was doing to people, especially women and girls. It was always about torture and death. 

My father and brother went out to shops most every day to get food and other items we needed, and they saw how the Taliban behaved with women. Once, they saw a woman who uncovered her face just for a moment, in order to see her way, and Talib surrounded her and beat her severely. Another day, my father and my brother saw the Taliban cut off three young men’s hands, claiming they were thieves. Another day, my mother and I went to a doctor in a taxi and when we came back, a car full of Taliban blocked our taxi and demanded to know where our Mahram, our male guardian, was. The Talib started beating the taxi driver and screamed at us to get out of taxi. We did get out and stood out on the street, terrified, wondering what to do, looking for a way to escape. We decided to quietly walk away, even as they beat the taxi driver. We could not help him. We hoped we were not noticed. We walked carefully through back streets, looking behind us, looking around corners, always on the lookout for the Taliban who had stopped our taxi or any new ones that might see us walking. It took us at least two hours until we reached our home. After that terrible incident with the Talib, I didn’t go out of the house for nearly six months.

20 Years of Peace & Joy

When the Taliban were later driven out of Kabul, my family rejoiced. The hope was incredible. We would return to normal. And perhaps Afghanistan would be even better than before. The world seemed to care for us and want everyone Afghanistan to be better, to be stable, to prosper, and for the women and girls there to be free to go to school and to work and to choose who to marry – or to not marry at all. And for 20 years, I got to work, to be educated, and to help make my country better. I believed in my country. I believed in my life.

I thought all of that the terror was over. I thought my country, and myself, had a future. I lived life for 20 years. 

The Return of the Taliban

It was the 15^th of August 2021, and I was at my house. My elder brother suddenly entered our house and said that the Taliban had just entered Kabul. I stopped everything. I put my hand on my rapidly beating heart. My knees felt weak. I couldn’t breathe. I remembered the constant terror of the first regime. I suddenly saw my young nieces and a terrible future where they would experience the same dark time I did when I was young and the Taliban was in power. All of the Taliban’s dark times, all of the violence, all of the confinement, all of the danger, was passing in front of my eyes like I am watching a horror movie.

I did as any other Afghan woman at that moment: I spent days sitting in front of our TV watching the news, watching foreign militaries and foreign embassy staff flee the country, watching the Taliban enter cities, and showing up on TV in government ministry offices, even offices I had been in myself. Eventually, I could see them on my street. We wondered if this time they would again force us to give up our TVs. We wondered if the information on our phones – our photos with foreign friends, our documents from foreign associates, our record of working for the Afghan government, the photos from our travels – would get us killed.

One day, I looked out the window and saw a car full of Taliban stopped in the middle of our street and just in front of our door. They took a man from the street and put their weapons on his forehead. My sister and my mother took me away from the window and into our hall so that I should not see what they did, but they told me later: they took the man and marked his forehead with black color and then cut off his hand at the wrist.

After that day, my family would not let me look the outside from the back of our window, so that I would not see what was happening and so that neighbors would not see me, a former government worker, a woman who had traveled abroad and talked with foreigners so freely. I live in a big house with a yard full of different fruit trees but I couldn’t go out and take the fruit myself: we were afraid that a neighbor might tell the Taliban that I, a woman who had worked for the government and traveled twice to the USA and studied in Australia and knew English, was in that house, a house that was not lead by a man because my father had passed away. Perhaps a neighbor would use this information to make the Taliban friendlier to them. I could open the window but I had to stay in the corner of the room to avoid being seen by our neighbors. The terror and lack of trust among neighbors were getting more intense day by day. I stayed in my home in a room which was far from our main street and house door. My brother tried to give me good news and even tried to say the Taliban had changed, because, otherwise, the international community won’t accept them. But we were hearing otherwise, through international media and even through brave local media. I wrote in my diary some days, but day and night were not that different for me because I couldn't use the brightness of the sun, the fresh weather. I kept six beautiful Budgerigar-parakeets-and one day when I notice that I can’t even see them well because they were in the open on our Verdana. I said to my mother I will free them. She was surprised and asked me why I would let them go, given how much I loved them. I told her I took their freedom and instead see now I am in prison. If I free them, I may find my freedom as well. She didn’t say anything and I freed them all.

The worse thing was that I couldn’t go to the grave of my father. My father was the main supporter of my life, he was the one who supported me to establish a homemade class for students during the Taliban regime in 1996. Now, I couldn’t go to his grave to talk with him. This made me crazy and I was so unhappy that I don’t have him now.

Day by day the appearance of women on TV became less and less, as most of the female broadcasters and entertainers fled from the country for fear of their lives and the Taliban prevented women from working. Each day, my mother also regularly checked each corner of our house outside and back of our door so that if the Taliban had written to threaten me, she can see the letter first. She went out into our yard, irrigating trees and checking if our neighbors are looking at our windows or if they behave differently. Myself, my sister and my nieces didn’t go out at all, even if we need a doctor – we just did our best at home. My mother had a young man who was responsible for bringing our food items and came to our house when we need his help. Once he came and told my mother that our neighbor, who was a governmental official and now supporting the Taliban, and that this neighbor had asked about me: where I am, if I am still in the country, etc. The young man said he doesn’t know and then came quickly to warn us. The neighbor asked him again a few days later. We feared he was looking for an excuse to encourage the Taliban to raid our home.

I tried to teach my young nieces, who are all different ages, since they are not allowed to go to school. We tried to access learning resources on the Internet. But the Internet connections became so poor. My nieces would cry at not being able to go to school, not being able to learn, not being able to leave. My mother hugged them, kissed them, and told them that after each darkness there is a brightness and this day will come and you will laugh, cheer and study again. Her advice and telling stories for them comforted them for a few moments, but never for very long.

In such times, you do not know who is your friend and who is not. I know that I have neighbors who will support the Taliban. Will neighbors tell them about me and my family, to be seen in a good light by them? Will I be arrested? Will they take away our apartment and throw us into the streets, as we are hearing they are doing in other places? What will happen to my mother, a widow, with no husband to protect her? What will happen to my young nieces, two just teenagers, two not even teenagers, all seen as the perfect age by the Taliban to abduct and take as “wives”?

We still had our phones and the Internet was still working enough for messages. Would the Taliban turn off the Internet? Text messages were flying around WhatsApp, which I had been using to stay in touch with local and foreign people. There were rumors that the Taliban were searching apartments and houses, looking for any documents that showed foreign ties or what they considered un-Islamic behavior, which could be almost anything. This searching happened in our street, two houses near ours, where they searched and took all men of the family, saying they worked with the government. I hid my English books, all the ID cards that I had a link with different networks, and other documents. It took me hours that I destroyed the paper copies of these things, and I wept as I did so. These were the most precious things in my life. I worked so hard till I got those documents. It was like burning a part of me. I have copies on my phone, and a friend in the USA preserved the digital copies, in case I would have to delete everything on my phone if the Taliban raided our apartment.

Rumors continued to fly around on the Internet of what the Taliban was doing, or planning to do, heightening our fear. We learned that Taliban fighters were murdering journalists and some of their family members. For instance, they had been hunting a German Afghanistan journalist and, not finding him, because he had have shot dead one member of his family:

http://www.dw.com/relative-of-dw-journalist-killed-by-taliban/a-58912975

They quickly banned women from being on TV. We were told the Taliban killed a pregnant police officer:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58455826

That they had shot dead Frozan Safi, 29, a women’s rights activist:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/05/womens-rights-activist-shot-dead-in-northern-afghanistan

The news began to fill with stories of the Taliban killing policewomen, teachers, military members, journalists, even singers. The Taliban was again targeting the Hazara people, killing them and forcing others to leave their homes. They were also abducting women and claiming they were now wives, but they are not wives, they are enslaved women who are regularly raped – that is not what the media should be calling a “wife.” These women are victims.

All this news made me so fearful and worried. All of my life of the last 20 years made me worried. My mother spent most of the day praying for me, my sister, and my nieces – the people in our household most at risk, though I also have a brother who worked for the US Embassy, and he is at risk as well.

Part of me was angry too. For twenty years, I did what Western countries wanted: I got an education, I worked for the government and foreign aid agencies, I tried to be a leader in my own small way, even writing a paper for my university final project on Afghan women and leadership. I worked with foreigners and I traveled to foreign lands. I did those things at the encouragement of the world, who said it was what I should do. I never hesitated. Now, all that had made me a target. It had made me a bird to be kept in a small cage, one that shall never fly, never sing, never have freedom- which is all unnatural, but it is what the Taliban demands. What was my future now?

I am a Muslim woman. I pray and pray and talk with God. I have always asked for his help to keep me safe. I recite the holy Koran. This has given me comfort and hope for a better future. I was starting to wonder if God would help me. Every day, I feared the knock at the door from the Taliban, that they would take me, and my nieces, away.

Desperation to Leave & Survive

As soon as I learned that the Taliban entered Kabul, I began contacting all of the foreigners I have worked with that I have remained in contact with, to tell them that it was urgent that I flee my beloved country, before the Taliban realized who I was and what I have been doing, and realized I was heading an all-female household, one of my widowed mother, my sister, and my nieces- which would make us all a perfect target for their terror. During all of these days of anxiety and fear, I was also frantically filling out paperwork online, trying to quality for evacuation to another country. Everyone seemed to be looking for a way out of the country, to escape the coming disaster. I contacted former co-workers, the US State Department, people at the university where I studied in Australia, anyone that I thought might be able to help me and my family flee. We were ready to lose everything, our home, all of our possessions, all of our assets, to be safe and to preserve our lives and our freedom. Associates in the USA and Australia contacted lawyers on my behalf, wrote letters to their elected officials, filled out paperwork, and guided me in preparing documentation and forms, trying to get permission and an invitation from a foreign government to leave.

Before the Americans’ last day at the airport, I got a message from a friend in Australia who said I should go to Kabul Airport immediately with all my family members and try to evacuate, that a plane was waiting for us. My brother went to the airport to see if that was possible, but came back and said there was no way to get close to the gates to talk to anyone. He described the chaos at the airport, and we also saw it on TV.

I was also in contact with an American I worked with at a government agency, who had hired me as her translator and her assistant when she was working at the agency too, under a United Nations contract. We have been in contact ever since we worked together in 2007. She has advised me in my work, my studies, and my life choices. She has edited my work, consulted with me on projects I am working on, and collaborated with me on my own projects, like essays I have written for different women’s writing projects. She told me about Rotary International, and I had joined it in Kabul and participated in it at her encouragement. She has no legal background, so she had to do a lot of research. She researched visas and refugee processes in the USA, the UK, Spain, Mexico, and Australia for me. She compiled all of my material to show that I am at great risk if I stay in Afghanistan and the material for my family. She contacted immigration lawyers, her US Senators, her US Congresswoman, and even some media people she knows. She knows the danger I face, and she is trying to help me. But there is so much paperwork, and so much bureaucracy we struggle to understand.

I tried to reach another supervisor whom I worked as her translator and believed that she will help me. When I wrote to her and asked her that the British council is helping those who worked with them, what was her response an excuse that she can’t help me. At that time, that I was begging everyone’s help and support and she was the one I believe she will help me as a woman but she responded no, this made me disappointed.

Every day, many times a day, I would check Whatsup, hoping a government would be writing with an offer of a visa. But every day, the messages were the same: people were working on my case and it may take longer and I have to be patient.

At last, I got a message from our Australian network that I was granted the visa to leave Afghanistan. And even better news: I would get to do what so many people were not allowed to do, and take many of my family with me. I would get to take my mother and all four of my nieces. I was so shocked and happy. But also sad, because it meant I would be leaving my unmarried sister, my brother, and my brother’s wife and child behind. I know that I am lucky that Australia would be taking in so many of my family, when so many people had to leave family behind- even mothers who had to leave children behind. But still, my heart is broken at sill not having all of my family here, and they are in danger as well, as my brother worked for the US Embassy briefly and my sister is an educated water and sanitation engineer who has worked many years for the Afghan government as well.

We had only eight hours to get ready after we heard the news of the visa for Australia. My mother at first refused to go without my sister and my brother and his family, but they begged her until she relented. My brother hid me in the car and then everyone else sat in the car normally and went toward the airport. When we reached close to the first stop of the airport we couldn’t go further as thousands of people were sitting, laying, and waiting. Many of them do not have travel documents, and even those who do could not get close to the gate to enter. We waited outside in the crowd for eight hours without access to food and a toilet. My nieces became more and more impatient and scared. One, the eight-year-old, began to say she wanted to go home. A rocket landed inside the airport and that made the situation even worse. The Taliban appeared and shouted to leave.

And so we returned home. Several hours later, there was a bombing outside the airport gate. Many people were killed and injured. Four members of the family of one of my Australian classes were killed on that day and her 8-year-old daughter was severely injured and transferred by American troops to Qatar without her family members.

The plane going to Australia left without us.

Could I stay in Afghanistan and hide for months, even years? There seemed to be no way out of the country. The US government said I could not proceed with my visa application there until I left Afghanistan, but offered no avenue for me to get out of Afghanistan. The US and other countries were also allowing only the person who worked with the state department to apply for a visa, sometimes not even their children or spouses. I could not leave my mother and nieces behind. My family pressured me to go, saying that I may lose all my chances to leave if I keep saying that I have to take my family but I didn’t listen to them.

I kept looking throughout September and October, as did friends abroad. Those friends researched visas from various countries and shared information with me. But nothing seemed to be an option.

I received a call from someone on my Australian Network that I should apply for a Pakistan visa and go to Pakistan. From there, I could resume my application to go to the USA. Obtaining a Pakistan visa was a very difficult process, as the Pakistan embassy has changed its procedure, and it took me more than a month to that get the visa. When I got the visa, there were no flights and all flights were stopped for an unknown period. Everyone told me that I should go from the land way but again it was another risk to be taken: there was a big crowd at Torkham gate, leading to Pakistan, as it was in Kabul Airport in August. And my mother and nieces could not go with me.

It was in November, and I received news that flights had resumed. I had the paperwork necessary for myself, my mother, and my nieces to go. We were among those who left Kabul on the first flight to Islamabad. From here, we could either use the visas we still had for Australia or wait and try to get into the USA. Our Australian visas allowed us to go straight to that country. I would not have to go to a transit country and live in a refugee camp for months-I would get to go to Australia, with my nieces and mother immediately. The US was implying that only I would be able to go to the next stage of the visa process, not necessarily my mother and nieces. I could not leave them in Pakistan. And so, we went to Australia.

I was somewhat relieved, but I was not joyous. It is very difficult to leave your country. I love my country. I have a large family there. I still have family there. I still have many friends there. It is my culture, my heritage. The grave of my beloved father is there. I believed in my country for so long, I worked so long to make it better. And now, I was leaving and losing all of that. I left behind my sister, my brothers, my nephew and my sister-in-law. We were safer but incredibly sad.

And now in Australia

When I reached Australia, my young nieces were so happy. They were free now. The could feel the sun on their faces. They had access to food. The people around them were not crying. They were not hidden away. They know that they will soon be going to school and they are excited to learn English. But for me and my mother, it is much more difficult. We know what this separation really means for the family. We have to keep working to get more of our family out of the country. They all have to learn English, and I have to improve my English well enough to get a job as soon as possible. My mother is elderly and needs a great deal of help getting around. We are struggling to find a home so that my nieces can go to school and I can get a job. We have nothing. We are starting over.

I am out of the cage of terror, but now in a new one, of worry, of new challenges. I will never really be free until my sister, my brothers and their families are with me. And in many ways, I will never be free until my country is free. I will never have fuller mental and spiritual peace of mind until I know that no one is being terrorized in my country.

Info for Press & Others:

If you would like to interview Asma, please contact me. Please include your full name, the name of your media company, and a link that shows you are real and have no association whatsoever with the Taliban or any entity that is sympathetic to the Taliban.

Similar accounts from other women in Afghanistan, or who have fled:

"The life I built as an Afghan woman went in the blink of an eye." Najibah Zartosht, a university lecturer, reflects on how the Taliban takeover upended her life and asks: was the hard work all for nothing? Via Al Jazeera.

The Afghans America Left Behind. The U.S. promised protection to the locals it relied on during the war. When it withdrew, it abandoned thousands to the Taliban. From The New Yorker.

Afghans in hiding from the Taliban plead for international help. From RTE.

Interview with woman hiding from the Taliban, who want to kill her mother for running a feminist radio station for 20 years. The Guardian. 18 Jan 2022.

Update:

What Asma's life is like in her new country, as of September 2023.