In Shot the Voice of Freedom, Afghan filmmaker Zainab Entezar documents women organising protests against Taliban rule, capturing not only their courage in the streets of Kabul but also the fears, disagreements and difficult decisions behind their resistance. Speaking to Novastan Editor-in-Chief Mathieu Lemoine, she reflects on the personal costs of activism, the ethical challenges of clandestine filmmaking, and why Afghan women must be recognised as more than victims of repression.

When the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, women were progressively excluded from education, employment and public life. Yet despite the growing restrictions and dangers, groups of Afghan women continued to organise demonstrations, demanding their fundamental rights and refusing to disappear from public view.

Read more on Novastan: “I survived things. But I also built things”: Nilofar Ayoubi on Afghan women, exile and resistance

For Afghan filmmaker Zainab Entezar, their resistance became the subject of Shot the Voice of Freedom (2024), a documentary that follows two sisters, including activist Reshmin, and other women organising protests in Kabul. Filmed partly in secret, the documentary moves between the streets, where demonstrations take place under the watch of armed Taliban members, and private homes, where the women plan their actions, confront opposition and grapple with the consequences of their decisions.

Rather than presenting its protagonists solely as victims or symbols of extraordinary bravery, the film offers a more intimate portrayal of resistance, revealing the uncertainty, vulnerability and determination behind public acts of defiance.

Premiering at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in 2024, Shot the Voice of Freedom is also being presented at the 2026 Asian Film Festival Barcelona. Meanwhile, Entezar’s latest documentary, 771 Days (2026), turns towards her own experiences living under Taliban rule before leaving Afghanistan.

In an interview with Novastan, Entezar discusses the relationship between cinema and resistance, the responsibility of documenting people at risk, and the challenges of telling Afghan women’s stories from exile.

What initially motivated you to document the resistance of Afghan women, and how did your own experience as an Afghan woman and filmmaker shape the story you wanted to tell?

For me, documenting the resistance of Afghan women was not simply a cinematic choice. It was deeply connected to my own life, experiences, and the reality in which I was living.

When the Taliban returned to power in 2021, Afghan women gradually faced increasingly severe restrictions on their education, work, social participation, and personal freedoms. What struck me most, however, was that despite these restrictions, women refused to remain silent. They took to the streets, protested, found one another, and tried to make their voices heard internationally, even when they knew they might pay a heavy price for doing so.

Read more on Novastan: From Madrid to Kabul: An Afghan Diplomat on Spain, the Taliban and the Republic’s Collapse

As an Afghan woman and filmmaker, I could not remain indifferent to this reality. I felt that if these moments were not documented, an important part of the history of Afghan women’s resistance might be overlooked, or others might tell their stories on their behalf.

With Shot the Voice of Freedom, I wanted the camera to do more than simply witness repression. I wanted it to show how women think, make decisions, experience fear, question themselves, and continue resisting despite everything. It was important to me to portray them not only as victims of an oppressive system, but as human beings with their own agency, ideas, and capacity to make choices.

The film is an attempt to document a moment in history when Afghan women continue to fight for their right to be present and to speak, despite efforts to silence them.

Through Reshmin and the other women you followed, what did you come to understand about the personal costs of resistance? How did you portray their vulnerability without reducing them to victims?

One of the most important things I came to understand while making this film is that resistance does not begin only when a woman stands in the street and raises her voice. Sometimes it begins much earlier, when she decides at home that she will go out, confront her fears, or stand up to opposition from people closest to her.

For the women in the film, the cost of resistance was not limited to the risk of arrest or violence in the streets. Their decisions could affect family relationships, their sense of security, their future, and even their relationships with the people they loved. Sometimes, alongside the repression they faced outside, they also had to confront fear and opposition within their own homes.

Through Reshmin and the other women, I came to understand more deeply that courage does not mean being unafraid. They were afraid, they worried, and they discussed the possible consequences of their decisions. But fear did not necessarily prevent them from acting.

When telling their stories, I did not want to turn these women into idealised, almost untouchable heroines. They are real people who are sometimes certain of their decisions, sometimes hesitant, and sometimes in disagreement about the path ahead. I believe that showing these complexities is more meaningful than presenting an unrealistically perfect image of courage.

Vulnerability is not the opposite of resistance. Sometimes, the meaning of resistance becomes clearest when a woman expresses her fear and still decides to continue fighting.

Much of the documentary unfolds inside homes, where women discuss their plans, confront disagreements and prepare for demonstrations. How did you approach the relationship between these private spaces and the streets of Kabul?

For me, the home and the street are not separate spaces. They are two parts of the same political and social reality.

In the streets, resistance becomes more visible. Women gather, chant slogans, and publicly oppose the Taliban’s policies. But before they reach the streets, important decisions are made at home. Women discuss when and how to protest, share their concerns, and sometimes have to make difficult decisions about the dangers awaiting them.

In the film, the home is not simply a place of refuge from danger. It also becomes a space for discussion, planning, disagreement, and political decision-making. In a society where women’s presence in public life is severely restricted, these conversations and relationships take on particular significance.

It was important to me to document these moments because I did not want the audience to see only the final result: women protesting in the streets. I wanted viewers to understand that behind every demonstration lies a series of decisions, anxieties, human relationships, and collective efforts.

These scenes also show that women’s resistance does not always take the form of a large, formally organised movement. Sometimes it begins with communication between a few women, mutual trust, and a decision made in a small, private space.

For this reason, I see both the home and the street as spaces of resistance: one where decisions take shape, and the other where those decisions become a visible public presence.

The documentary includes footage filmed secretly during demonstrations. What ethical dilemmas did you face, and how did you balance making women’s struggle visible with protecting their safety?

This was one of the most difficult aspects of making the film, because the camera could be both a tool for documenting the truth and, under certain circumstances, a source of danger for the people in front of it.

Filming demonstrations in the presence of armed Taliban members involved serious physical risks. But the question was not only about my own safety as a filmmaker. The footage could potentially be used to identify women, investigate their relationships, or put pressure on them and their families.

In these circumstances, one question was always important to me: could making an image visible to the world create a cost for the person in it that they should never have to bear?

Making a film about women’s resistance did not mean that I had the right to publish everything I had recorded without considering the consequences. Recording an image and deciding to publish it are two different responsibilities. A filmmaker must think not only about what they want to show, but also about the risks that its publication might create.

For this reason, the safety and privacy of the people featured in the film have been fundamental concerns for me. Under such circumstances, decisions about how footage is used, how much information is shared with audiences, and which details might lead to someone’s identification require particular care.

At the same time, I did not want fear of danger to result in all evidence of women’s resistance disappearing. If no images remain, those who want to deny this resistance may find it easier to erase it from public memory.

For me, the filmmaker’s responsibility lies in finding a balance between these two obligations: documenting the truth and protecting the people who have trusted us with their stories. No film should be made at the expense of recklessly endangering the people whose lives it seeks to represent.

One particularly disturbing element of the film is footage showing women making statements after their arrests. What did you want viewers to understand through the contrast between these images and the women’s own voices throughout the documentary?

For me, these images are among the most significant parts of the film because they show that repression does not end with restricting women’s actions. It can also involve attempts to control the narrative surrounding those actions.

When a woman takes to the streets to protest, she is trying to speak about her circumstances, her rights, and the future of her society. But when that same woman appears after being arrested, in circumstances where her words may be subject to pressure and control, the issue is no longer simply whether she can be present in the streets. It becomes a question of who is allowed to determine the meaning of her protest.

Placing these images alongside the women’s voices and conversations elsewhere in the film was important to me. By that point, the audience has already encountered their thoughts, concerns, aspirations, and disagreements. When viewers subsequently see the footage recorded after their arrests, they can reflect on the difference between a woman’s independent voice and a narrative that may have been imposed on her under pressure.

I did not want simply to tell the audience how to interpret these images. Instead, I wanted the contrast to emerge through the structure of the film, allowing viewers to think about it and draw their own conclusions.

The footage also reminds us that power is exercised not only through arrest and restriction, but sometimes through attempts to control the meaning of events themselves. In such circumstances, preserving women’s independent voices and documenting what they said before being silenced become particularly important.

Your film portrays women as political actors rather than simply as victims of repression. Has international media coverage adequately reflected this agency? And what forms of solidarity would make a meaningful difference today?

I believe international media have played an important role in bringing Afghan women’s voices to the world. However, there remains a considerable gap between making women’s suffering visible and recognising them as independent political actors.

Many accounts of Afghanistan focus on the restrictions, violence, and deprivation that women experience. These realities must be documented and reported. But when the narrative is limited to suffering, an essential part of the truth is overlooked: Afghan women continue to think, make decisions, organise, resist, and find ways to fight for their future.

Afghan women are not only people whose rights have been taken away. They are also people actively fighting to reclaim those rights. I believe the distinction between these two perspectives is crucial.

Since 2021, Afghan women have repeatedly demonstrated that, despite repression and restrictions, they are not prepared to simply abandon their social and political presence. However, international solidarity has not always matched the courage these women demonstrate or the price they pay. Media attention alone is not enough, just as expressions of political concern cannot bring meaningful change without effective action.

Meaningful solidarity must begin with listening to women themselves. This means supporting their independent initiatives, creating opportunities for their voices to reach international audiences, supporting artists and human rights defenders at risk, and preserving opportunities for Afghan women to work professionally and participate in cultural life.

Read more on Novastan: Beyond the ‘Graveyard of Empires’: Rethinking the Afghan State

It is also essential that Afghan women do not receive attention only when a major crisis or news event occurs. Their resistance is not a passing headline. It is a long-term struggle that requires sustained attention, support, and accountability.

I do not expect a film, by itself, to change the political situation in Afghanistan. But I hope it can help audiences see women not only through the lens of repression, but also through their determination, ideas, and struggle.

How has living in exile changed your relationship with Afghanistan and the stories you want to tell? What are the challenges of documenting a society to which you can no longer freely return?

Exile has changed my relationship with Afghanistan, but Afghanistan remains an inseparable part of my life, identity, and work. Physical distance does not mean that my connection with its people, realities, and stories has disappeared.

As a filmmaker, before going into exile, I could be physically present in the society I was documenting and experience its realities more directly. When you are forced to leave your country, however, your relationship with that society becomes more complicated. You can no longer move freely as you once did, enter every space, or document people’s everyday lives without concerns about the security consequences.

One of the greatest challenges is finding a balance between physical distance and human closeness. On the one hand, you no longer live in the same geographical space. On the other, the stories you want to tell still concern real people who remain there and may be exposed to danger.

This situation makes the filmmaker’s responsibility even greater. You must pay attention to the information you receive, the limitations on access, the security of your sources, and the possibility that images or stories could be misused. You must also ensure that physical distance does not lead you to oversimplify the complexities of people’s lives.

At the same time, exile has allowed me to look at certain experiences from a different perspective. When you are far from your country, you sometimes come to understand more deeply the meaning of home, freedom, belonging, and loss. These experiences have naturally influenced my perspective on cinema and the stories I choose to tell.

I continue to see myself as a filmmaker who makes films about Afghanistan and its people. My place of residence has changed, but the responsibility I feel towards the stories of this society remains.

Your latest documentary, 771 Days, turns towards your own experiences under Taliban rule. What prompted you to tell your own story, and how do you see the relationship between the two films?

For me, making 771 Days did not mean abandoning the stories of other women and turning towards an entirely separate subject. It was a continuation of the path I had begun by documenting Afghan women’s experiences, but this time the camera turned more directly towards my own life.

In Shot the Voice of Freedom, I sought to document the lives and resistance of women who continued fighting to make their voices heard despite restrictions and danger. I was present alongside them as a filmmaker, trying to portray their experiences and decisions.

But with 771 Days, I faced an experience that I could no longer observe simply from the outside. The film explores 771 days of my own life under Taliban rule, a period that profoundly affected me as a woman, mother, filmmaker, and writer. In this film, my personal experience and my struggle to preserve my identity and my ability to continue living and working become central to the story.

Deciding to tell my own story was not easy. When filmmakers tell other people’s stories, they must take responsibility for how those lives are represented. But when you become the subject of your own film, you face additional questions: What should you reveal? How can you transform a personal experience into a cinematic narrative? And how can you tell your story honestly without claiming to represent every Afghan woman?

I believe the connection between these two films lies precisely here. Both are about the struggle to preserve one’s voice, identity, and capacity to make choices under a system of political power that seeks to restrict them. One follows women’s collective resistance at close range, while the other tells the personal story of a woman confronting the same political reality.

I do not want international audiences to finish watching my films feeling only sadness about the situation of Afghan women. I want them to know these women, listen to what they have to say, and understand the complexity of their lives. Afghan women are not merely symbols of suffering. They are filmmakers, writers, mothers, students, activists, and individuals with their own aspirations, decisions, and different visions of the future.

If audiences come away from these two films understanding that women’s resistance does not happen only in the streets or in moments of public protest, but also in the struggle to continue living, preserve one’s identity, tell the truth, and refuse to remain silent, then I will feel that I have communicated something essential about what I wanted to express.

By Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan English.

The post Zainab Entezar: “Vulnerability is not the opposite of resistance” appeared first on Novastan English.

From growing up as a bacha posh in Kunduz to becoming an entrepreneur, journalist and women’s rights advocate, Nilofar Ayoubi has experienced the freedoms and restrictions imposed on Afghan women from unusually different perspectives. Now based in Poland, she speaks to Novastan English Editor-in-Chief Mathieu Lemoine about gender apartheid, political participation, exile, the legacy of Afghanistan’s pre-2021 media landscape and why the country should also be understood through its connections with Central Asia.

For much of her childhood, Nilofar Ayoubi lived publicly as a boy.

Growing up in Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, she became a bacha posh – literally a girl “dressed as a boy” – a practice through which some Afghan families allow daughters to assume a male social identity, often giving them access to freedoms otherwise restricted to girls. Ayoubi has previously recalled attending school, practising karate, riding bicycles and moving through public space with freedoms that disappeared when, around puberty, she could no longer continue living publicly as a boy.

The experience would shape the political outlook that followed. Before the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, Ayoubi built businesses employing women, worked in journalism and founded the Women’s Political Participation Network in 2020, amid growing fears that women’s rights would be bargained away during peace negotiations. She also headed Asia Times Afghanistan and worked as an editor with Akhbar Afghan.

When the Taliban entered Kabul in August 2021, that public profile placed her at particular risk. On 23 August, she left Afghanistan with her husband and three young children and eventually rebuilt her life in Warsaw. She has since continued advocating internationally for Afghan women while maintaining contact with women inside the country.

Five years after the Taliban returned to power, women and girls remain excluded from secondary and university education and face sweeping restrictions on employment, movement and participation in public life. Ayoubi is among those campaigning for this system to be internationally recognised as gender apartheid.

Yet she is equally insistent that Afghan women should not be understood solely through what has been done to them.

“I survived things,” she tells Novastan. “But I also built things.”

Novastan: You spent much of your childhood as a bacha posh, experiencing freedoms that were denied to girls. When you eventually had to begin living publicly as a girl, what did that transition teach you?

Nilofar Ayoubi: It taught me something very early that many people spend a lifetime trying to articulate: freedom can be determined by something as arbitrary as how society perceives your gender.

For around thirteen years, I lived as a bacha posh. As a boy, I could go to school more freely, ride a bicycle, practise karate, move through public spaces and experience a degree of independence. Then I had to return to living publicly as a girl, and suddenly the world around me became smaller.

I was the same person. My intelligence had not changed. My courage had not changed. My abilities had not changed. Only society’s perception of me had changed.

That experience shaped almost everything I later became.

It made me understand that the restrictions imposed on Afghan women were never evidence of women’s inability. They were evidence of a system deliberately limiting their possibilities.

It also taught me that freedom is not abstract. Sometimes freedom is simply being able to walk somewhere without permission. To ride a bicycle. To study. To speak loudly. To occupy space without apologising for your existence.

Once you have experienced both sides of that invisible wall, it becomes impossible not to see it.

Before 2021, you built businesses and employed hundreds of women. Did you see giving women jobs and financial independence as a form of activism?

Absolutely.

I never separated women’s economic independence from women’s rights. A woman who earns her own income gains something beyond money. She gains bargaining power inside her family, greater control over her choices, confidence, mobility and, sometimes, the ability to leave situations she would otherwise be trapped in.

That is political power at its most practical level.

In Afghanistan, I saw women with extraordinary ability who were prevented from using it, not because a law necessarily prohibited them, but because of family pressure, social expectations, insecurity, lack of childcare, restrictions on movement, harassment and the constant calculation of reputation.

Read more on Novastan: Bound by Tradition: Silent Suffering of Daughters-in-Law in Uzbekistan

This is something international discussions about women’s rights sometimes miss. Changing a constitution is important, but a progressive law does not automatically change what happens behind the door of a home.

I wanted women working with me to earn, learn and understand that their labour had economic value.

Entrepreneurship therefore became another form of activism for me. Instead of only saying that women were capable, I could create environments in which they demonstrated it every day.

And they did.

You also worked in journalism. Looking back, what had twenty years of relatively open media actually changed in Afghan society, and how much of that legacy survives today?

Afghanistan’s media sector before August 2021 was imperfect, sometimes chaotic and certainly not completely free, but its transformation was extraordinary.

A generation grew up hearing women questioning politicians on television, journalists investigating corruption, young people debating religion, governance and society, and citizens openly criticising powerful people.

That matters.

Freedom of expression does not only produce newspapers and television programmes. It changes what a society believes it is entitled to ask.

We built that culture over twenty years, often at enormous personal risk. Afghan journalists were threatened, attacked and killed long before August 2021.

Today, the institutional space for that freedom has been devastated. Women journalists have been systematically pushed out of public life, censorship and self-censorship have become pervasive, and independent journalism operates under extraordinary pressure.

But I do not believe the intellectual legacy disappeared.

You cannot expose an entire generation to debate, information and freedom of expression and then completely erase the memory of it.

The Taliban can close a newsroom. They can intimidate a journalist. They can impose restrictions on what can be published. What is much harder is making millions of Afghans forget that another reality once existed.

That memory is itself a form of resistance.

You founded the Women’s Political Participation Network shortly before the previous political order collapsed. What did Afghan women involved in the network actually want from politics?

The women I worked with did not simply want seats in rooms. They wanted influence over the decisions being made inside those rooms.

There is a very important difference between representation and participation.

Read more on Novastan: More Women in Central Asian Politics – But Where Is the Power?

Too often, women’s political participation in Afghanistan became a numbers exercise: How many women are attending? How many women are in parliament? How many women are sitting at the table?

But the real question should have been: Do these women have power?

Can they influence negotiations? Can they shape budgets? Can they challenge decisions? Are women from outside Kabul included? Are younger women included? Are women from different ethnic, socioeconomic and political backgrounds represented?

Read more on Novastan: Uzbekistan: when women demand to have a voice

When we founded the Women’s Political Participation Network in 2020, the peace process was already creating enormous anxiety among women. Many could see that women’s rights were becoming negotiable in the pursuit of a political settlement.

We were not asking the international community to “save Afghan women.” Afghan women had been saving themselves, organising themselves and fighting for political space for years.

We were asking not to be traded away.

Unfortunately, that distinction was not taken seriously enough.

You argue that what the Taliban have created should be recognised internationally as “gender apartheid”. Why is that terminology important?

Because words determine how the world understands a crime.

What exists in Afghanistan today is not a collection of unrelated discriminatory policies. It is a systematic architecture of exclusion based on gender.

Girls have been denied secondary and university education. Women have been pushed out of much of employment and public life. Their freedom of movement has been restricted. Their visibility in public space has been deliberately reduced. Their access to parks, gyms and many other areas of ordinary life has been curtailed.

This is not simply “conservative governance.” It is not merely a women’s-rights problem.

It is a system.

When exclusion becomes systematic, institutionalised and enforced by the state because of the sex of the person being excluded, our language must reflect the scale and nature of what is happening.

That is why I advocate for recognition of gender apartheid.

Calling it discrimination risks making it sound as though women are experiencing unequal treatment within society. Afghan women are increasingly being denied the right to participate in society itself.

The terminology also matters legally and politically. Recognition creates pressure for accountability and makes it much harder for governments to normalise relations while pretending that the systematic persecution of half the population is simply an internal cultural matter.

No government should be permitted to make women socially invisible and still expect normal diplomatic legitimacy.

You remain in contact with women inside Afghanistan. How different are those conversations from discussions about Afghanistan at international conferences?

The difference can be enormous.

At international conferences, Afghanistan is discussed through phrases such as “engagement,” “stability,” “humanitarian access,” “dialogue” and “pragmatism.”

Inside Afghanistan, the conversation is about survival.

It is about a girl watching another academic year disappear. A woman wondering how she will support her children because she can no longer work. An activist deleting messages because she is afraid her phone might be searched. A journalist trying to continue working while navigating censorship and intimidation.

These are not theoretical policy questions for them. They determine the architecture of their daily lives.

One thing outsiders repeatedly underestimate is Afghan women’s agency.

Women inside Afghanistan are not sitting passively waiting for someone abroad to rescue them. They are teaching girls secretly, documenting abuses, working where they can, supporting families, organising networks and finding extraordinary ways to resist erasure.

Another mistake is assuming that silence means acceptance.

When speaking carries the possibility of detention, violence or retaliation against your family, silence cannot automatically be interpreted as consent.

Sometimes silence is survival.

You have also become one of the people international media turn to when telling the story of Afghan women. Do you feel frustrated by the way foreign media portray them?

Yes, very much.

Afghan women have suffered enormously, and we should never minimise that suffering. But suffering is not our entire identity.

I have always resisted the idea that Afghan women should be presented only through photographs of burqas, poverty and despair.

Before August 2021, Afghan women were journalists, prosecutors, judges, politicians, entrepreneurs, athletes, teachers, artists, activists, police officers and students.

After August 2021, they did not suddenly lose their intelligence, ambition or political consciousness. They lost the institutional space in which they were allowed to exercise them.

That distinction matters.

I know something about this personally. My own story has been reported internationally many times, and I am grateful that people have cared enough to listen. But I never want the most painful parts of my life to become the only explanation of who I am.

I survived things. But I also built things.

That is true for millions of Afghan women.

Victimhood may describe something that happened to a person. It should never become the total definition of that person.

You grew up in Kunduz, with deep historical and cultural connections to neighbouring Central Asia. Is Afghanistan too often viewed solely through South Asia, the Middle East or the “war on terror”?

Absolutely.

Growing up in Kunduz gives you a very different geographical imagination of Afghanistan.

Northern Afghanistan has always been connected to Central Asia through trade, migration, language, ethnicity, families and culture. The borders on modern maps are politically important, but human relationships across that geography are much older.

Afghanistan is often analysed externally according to whichever geopolitical crisis is dominant. During the last twenty years, it was overwhelmingly interpreted through terrorism, Pakistan, NATO and the war on terror.

That framework obscures how historically interconnected Afghanistan is.

Looking north reminds us that Afghanistan is not simply the western edge of South Asia or an appendage of the Middle East. It is also deeply connected to Central Asia.

For Kunduz, Balkh, Badakhshan and other northern provinces, understanding relationships with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan helps explain trade, culture, identity, security and political dynamics that cannot be understood solely through Kabul or Pakistan.

Afghanistan has always stood at a crossroads. Reducing it to a battlefield between competing powers has prevented outsiders from understanding the country as a society.

You had to rebuild your life after arriving in Poland. Has becoming an entrepreneur again in Europe changed how you think about economic independence?

Yes, because exile forced me to experience economic independence from another perspective.

On 23 August 2021, I left Afghanistan with my husband and our three very young children. I went from a life and career that I had spent years building to arriving in Warsaw and facing enormous uncertainty.

I had to start again.

There is something profoundly humbling about becoming a refugee. Your qualifications, reputation, networks and achievements do not necessarily cross a border with you in the same way your body does.

Rebuilding businesses and professional life in Europe reminded me that entrepreneurship is not only about financial independence. It is also about identity and dignity.

In Afghanistan, creating businesses was partly about expanding women’s possibilities within a restrictive environment.

In Europe, rebuilding became partly about refusing to allow displacement to reduce me permanently to the identity of “refugee.”

I am proud of surviving, but I do not want survival to be the highest ambition available to displaced women.

We should be able to rebuild, lead, create, employ people and contribute economically to the societies in which we now live.

Economic independence means different things in Warsaw and Kabul, but its psychological foundation is similar: the ability to make choices about your own life.

After years of conferences, meetings and appeals to governments, what kind of international action do you still believe can make a concrete difference?

After five years, I have become much less interested in statements and much more interested in consequences.

The Taliban have learned that international condemnation is often temporary and rarely carries sufficient cost.

We issue statements. We organise conferences. We express outrage. Then another meeting takes place, another diplomatic channel opens and another concession is described as “pragmatic engagement.”

Engagement without benchmarks becomes normalisation.

I am not arguing that the international community should abandon Afghanistan. Isolation that harms ordinary Afghans is not a solution either. Humanitarian assistance must continue, and Afghans should not be punished for the actions of the Taliban.

But engagement must have conditions.

There should be measurable requirements concerning women’s education, employment, movement and participation in public life. Afghan women and independent civil society must have meaningful representation in international discussions about Afghanistan, not ceremonial invitations after decisions have already been made.

There must also be accountability. That means supporting international legal mechanisms, documenting abuses, protecting journalists and human-rights defenders, and advancing the recognition of gender apartheid in international law.

At the same time, international support should reach Afghan-led initiatives directly, particularly women-led education, media, civil society and humanitarian networks.

I have spent years helping vulnerable Afghans, including women at immediate risk, journalists, activists and families trying to escape danger. One lesson has become very clear to me: sometimes relatively small, targeted interventions change an actual human life more effectively than another multimillion-dollar conference about Afghanistan.

What has failed is the repeated assumption that Afghan women’s rights can be postponed until some future political settlement.

We have seen where that logic leads.

Afghan women do not need the world to speak endlessly about how courageous they are. They need the international community to make their persecution politically, diplomatically and legally consequential.

I still believe international action can make a difference. Otherwise I would not continue doing this work.

But solidarity without consequences eventually becomes ceremony.

And Afghan women have had enough ceremonies.

By Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan English.

The post “I survived things. But I also built things”: Nilofar Ayoubi on Afghan women, exile and resistance appeared first on Novastan English.

Faced with archaic social expectations, Tajik women are expressing their exhaustion through a new coded language on social media. Built around the phrase “I am Tajik”, many personal testimonies have circulated in recent years.

“I am a Tajik woman and I have an unbreakable strength of spirit that allows me to overcome all of life’s difficulties,” says Madina Nigmatova, who took part in the movement.

With the aim of deconstructing stereotypes deeply rooted in Tajik society, a growing number of women and girls across the country are regularly joining this movement, celebrating a strong image of women through traditional clothing and jewellery.

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Beyond imposed roles

Far from limiting themselves to the domestic roles traditionally imposed on women – cooking, cleaning and caring for the household – which some movements, such as “tradwives” in the United States, are now bringing back into fashion, Tajik women are using the digital sphere to give voice to feminist struggles. Madina Nigmatova, a social media marketing specialist and trainer, says that women not only have the right but also the duty to be visible, fulfilled in their careers, creative and fully active in the business world.

“We know our traditions, we respect them, we pass them on to future generations. But we want to live in our time, as educated and independent women. The modern Tajik woman has learned to combine several roles: taking part in competitions, pursuing any career, while also looking after her children and managing the home,” she says.

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This movement is taking place in a context where women and married girls in Tajikistan have limited access to electronic devices and the internet, often because of family control. In households where men work abroad, for example, mothers may receive smartphones instead of wives, thereby limiting the latter’s digital autonomy.

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A subtle deconstruction of prejudice

In her version of “I am Tajik”, Madina Nigmatova draws attention to the widespread stereotype of the accomplished woman who, in Tajik society, is often perceived as a divorced woman.

Modern women easily combine family life, professional achievement and personal fulfilment: some make pastries, others create and run online businesses, while others work as makeup artists.

Also read on Novastan : Contrôle de l’habillement des femmes au Tadjikistan : entre tradition et répression

“When the videos were shared in different groups, many comments said that, to reflect the true image of the Tajik woman, they should have shown how to cook, sweep the yard or milk cows. The Tajik woman, the kelinka, is not limited to the role of servant. She is a full person who seeks fulfilment and balance between private life and career. I feel immense admiration for them,” says Madina Nigmatova.

A long-standing trend

This trend emerged last year, when several bloggers shared a joint video in which they said they were Tajik women and that this did not prevent them from “building a career”, “living separately from their parents”, “dressing as they wish”, “running a blog”, “not being married at 32”, “doing business”, or “creating a company”.

Also read on Novastan : Comment l’appareil judiciaire discrimine les femmes au Tadjikistan

The video sparked fierce controversy and a wave of hatred, particularly because the young women spoke in Russian while presenting themselves as Tajik. Yet the negative reactions did not manage to put an end to the trend. On the contrary, the more malicious comments multiplied, the more they increased the feeling of exhaustion with social injunctions. What women once kept silent out of shame, they now express more freely.

Multiple demands

“I am Tajik, I am 26 years old and I am postponing marriage because I am afraid of drastic changes in life; the institution of marriage frightens me because I have seen few successful examples around me,” Leila writes on her page.

“I am Tajik: I got married at 37. My only daughter is four and a half. I am 43. I lived and continued my studies in Italy, in the south to be precise. I have lived in Russia for 18 years. Before becoming an eyebrow specialist, I worked for 12 years as a stylist, buyer and merchandising department manager in major companies in Moscow,” Zarina says.

Also read on Novastan : Faut-il renforcer l’arsenal juridique contre les violences sexistes au Tadjikistan ?

“I am a Tajik woman who finished a Russian school in Tajikistan and I did not get married straight away. I am Tajik and I grew up in a traditional family and no, I was not scolded, we never argued before I left. On the contrary, I was truly supported,” writes Omina.

“I am Tajik and I do not allow myself to give unsolicited advice, such as: ‘One child is not enough, you need to have another one. It is not in your plans? Then your husband will end up leaving you,’” says Shakhzoda.

“I am Tajik, and I deliberately chose to marry a Kazakh, simply because that is what I wanted. When I want something, I refuse to forbid myself from having it,” says Bargigul.

Backlash and masculinist reactions

These posts regularly receive thousands of views and hundreds of comments. Women tend to leave positive and inspiring replies.

By contrast, fuelled by underlying misogyny, comments from men are generally far from encouraging. They include: “your eyes are not those of a Tajik woman”, “you dishonour the nation”, and “marrying a foreigner destroys the Tajik gene”. Many other comments in the same vein seek to discredit the activities and positions taken by many women in Tajikistan.

A simple format

The phrase “I am Tajik” can be personalised by adding something for which one has been criticised, felt shame, or which is, on the contrary, a source of pride.

Examples include: “… and I earn much more than men”, “… and I do not know how to make plov, and that is perfectly fine”, “… and I speak five languages”.

Also read on Novastan : Ces femmes tadjikes qui s’approprient les professions « masculines »

The video is often filmed in a pleasant setting where the women feel safe, with a posture intended to appear authentic. Traditional elements of Tajik culture in clothing or decor are often highlighted, because promoting cultural heritage and traditions is not incompatible with feminist emancipation.

The hashtags #iamtajik, #tajikgirlpower and #ihavetheright often accompany these messages and help them spread more widely.

“We are different, but we are all Tajik”

Many Tajik girls have also taken part in the “duxtari tojik” trend, meaning Tajik girl. In these videos, they embody women from different regions of the country, challenging the boundaries of regionalism — a phenomenon that remains very present in Tajik society.

Accompanied by a song by Tajik singer Nobovar Chanorov, which evokes girls from different regions, the emphasis is placed on cultural richness and regional identity rather than geographical division.

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“I did not know there were so many styles of traditional clothing in our country,” Bahora says in one of her videos. Several moved internet users responded by highlighting friendship between all regions of Tajikistan.

The message is regularly shared in several languages. At the request of her followers, makeup artist Farangis offers looks inspired by different regions of Tajikistan, accompanied by brief explanations in Tajik, Russian and English. The movement goes beyond the country’s borders and more broadly inspires women from neighbouring countries. This is notably the case of an Uzbek blogger who also joined the movement, presenting the wedding dresses of Tajik women from different regions.

This trend unites Tajik women across the continent: from Iran to China, each video brings its own personal touch.

The post Tajik women reveal themselves through the “I am Tajik and…” trend appeared first on Novastan English.

International Women’s Day is celebrated around the world on 8 March. Originating in the feminist struggles of the early 20th century, this day is intended as a day of mobilisation for gender equality. In the countries of Central Asia, this popular holiday is more a celebration of femininity, with flowers being the custom.

To mark the occasion, the price of bouquets sold in this Dushanbe underground passage has been raised from 30 to 40 somoni. 

Credits: Novastan.

Find all of our photos of the day. You can buy some of these and receive them at home: here is the list! If you can't find your picture in the list, mail us to photo@novastan.org.

The post Woman’s Day appeared first on Novastan English.

On International Women’s Day in Almaty, feminist organisations rallied “for bodily autonomy and against sexual violence”. According to estimates, 700 to 1000 participants joined the rally to express their demands. After facing an initial ban by the city administration, the organisers only received limited permission to assemble on a distant location in the city’s outskirts.

The rally opened with a moment of silence in memory of those killed by domestic violence. The situation with violence against women in Kazakhstan is alarming: in 2021, 110 women were killed as a result of domestic violence. In 2022, there were 373 rapes registered in Kazakhstan; so far in 2023 72 cases of sexual violence have been reported. According to official sources, more than 100 000 domestic violence complaints are received by the authorities annually. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly insisted upon greater accountability for abusers. Recently, Human Rights Watch again called for Kazakhstan to “ensure that draft laws relating to domestic violence provide maximum protection for women from family violence, including by criminalising domestic violence as a stand-alone offense“. A draft law On Combating Domestic Violence, which would have strengthened protections for victims of family abuse, passed its first reading in parliament in 2020, but was withdrawn in 2021 as it was said to be in need of improvement. Activists also voiced a demand to pass a bill on sexual harassment and to join the Istanbul Convention. This international agreement was initiated by the Council of Europe to end violence against women and domestic violence. Since the withdrawal of the draft law, state officials have submitted several revisions; HRW claims the authorities proposed “at least two other pieces of legislation that include domestic violence-related provisions”, but the new draft is unavailable for public discussion.

Long way to a march in March

In 2017, the first feminist march took place in Almaty. Back then, the activists had not received a permit from the city administration. In 2019, for the first time, the authorities officially approved a feminist rally and then a feminist march. But in 2020, the organisations FemAgora, KazFem and Feminita were denied permission to organise a march on March 8. In 2021, the Almaty city council approved the largest feminist march in Kazakhstan to date. Between 500 and 1000 participants marched about five kilometres through the streets of the city. Last year, the Almaty Women’s March was only allowed at the last moment.

Read more on Novastan: 8 March in Almaty: “women belong in politics!”

Fariza Ospan, one of the organisers of the 2023 Almaty women’s march, says the organising committee applied for approval four times before permission was finally granted: the first time in December 2022. The municipality then banned the march because of an event of the League of Volunteers, a quasi-public organisation which became famous in 2018 as they campaigned in support of a controversial state project to build a ski resort in a national park (and won several questionable public contracts). Ospan says the organisers suspect that the city council had already decided to ban the march even before any application was submitted, as all demonstration sites were allegedly booked by the League of Volunteers.

During a Q&A with citizens in February, Almaty’s Mayor Erbolat Dosaev said “We’ll see what we give permission for and what we don’t,” when the activists asked him if the march was going to be approved, and added that “the 8th of March is a holiday that is important for men as well“. The same day, the organisers of the women’s march were notified that their rally would not receive municipal permission. As Ospan explains, this was anticipated: the organisers had planned to protest the ban every weekend until permission was granted. The first protest took place on 5 February, when more than 150 people gathered to voice their discontent with the administration’s decision.

The difficulty of organising demonstrations in Kazakhstan

In 2020, Kazakhstan’s Parliament passed the Law “On Peaceful Assemblies,” according to which it is sufficient to inform local authorities of a planned demonstration, without obtaining explicit permission to organise one. However, this law is heavily criticised by civil society for violating the right of peaceful assembly, as the procedure to notify the authorities is actually more complicated than it might seem. In Almaty, there are three locations where the citizens are allowed to peacefully assemble, with the capacity for 200, 500, and 1000 participants, and only one possible route for a march. The largest location is in the city centre, although it is rather far away from the city administration buildings. The other two are located in residential neighbourhoods on the city’s outskirts. But even the latter locations are often unavailable for various reasons, such as repair works or other events. In 2019, an activist was finally permitted to hold a rally, after his request had first been rejected 35 times. Although the law has been updated since, the grounds for the municipality to ban protests have not.

According to Kazakh law, an application to hold a demonstration is non-binding. It means that even if a rally is cancelled in advance, the city hall is not obliged to inform other potential applicants that the location has become available. This lack of transparency makes it difficult to keep the local government in check, while it allows the municipality to ban genuine initiatives. Even if organisers are notified that a location is vacant, this often happens with little time left to prepare. In Kazakhstan, those planning a demonstration are responsible for anything that could go wrong, creating yet another obstacle for activists to overcome. For example, if the number of participants specified in the application is exceeded or the agenda changes, organisers could be sanctioned.

Limited permission granted

As Fariza Ospan explains, in February, the city council communicated that the League is ready to “give up two locations“. The Women’s March organising committee hoped to secure a location next to Shoqan Walikhanov’s monument in downtown Almaty, where up to 1000 people could gather. But this could not be facilitated. The activists could choose between two distant locations and finally applied to organise a gathering at the Ghandi Park with a capacity of 200 people. On 21 February, the organising committee of the Almaty women’s march learned from an article by news outlet Orda.kz that their rally was finally allowed to take place. The official approval from the city administration came in the evening. Yet, the ban to march through the city was left in place and the organisers decided not to proceed with it to avoid putting the participants in danger. The turn-out exceeded expectations. Local news outlets have come with various estimates: from “up to 700″ to “at least 1000“. All difficulties aside, this year’s rally in Almaty once again showed that the 8th of March has become an annual tradition for the women’s movement in Kazakhstan − and it is likely here to stay.

Written by Anna Wilhelmi, Emma Collet

Edited by Julian Postulart

Photos by Toma Maratova

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The post Women’s Day in Kazakhstan: hundreds gather for rally in Almaty appeared first on Novastan English.