The story isn’t just about the fall of a regime. That collapse left behind countless wounds and pains, each chronicled in notes. Thousands of lives were shattered, countless youths fled their homeland, brilliant minds were exiled, and hopes and dreams were buried.
The tale of the fall is the story of lives extinguished—young people who, over the past three years, have endured their hardest days, trapped in depression and uncertainty. On the third anniversary of the fall, young people from different walks of life—students, teachers, doctors, photographers, artists, and girls in exile—have shared sorrowful notes, each narrating the bitter reality of three years under Taliban rule. These notes reflect the harsh truths the Taliban have imposed on various sectors of society, particularly women.
Women and girls have written about their imposed lives under the Taliban, describing what they have endured over the past three years of Taliban rule. The first note is from a teacher who, despite numerous restrictions, continues to strive for the education of girls. She writes about the bitterness of the past three years of her life: “It has been three years of living in fear and uncertainty.
Three years under Taliban rule, for me as a girl, have been the epitome of inequality and injustice. If anyone wants to understand what injustice means, they should ask me and the millions of girls in Afghanistan who have experienced it firsthand under this oppressive Taliban regime for thre.