One Year On Of Taliban Rule

It was on this day last year that the world watched helplessly as Afghanistan crumbled and fell on it's knees to the barbarous taliban. It was a triumph for the taliban, but for the rest, it was the death of all hopes and dreams. It was covered by every news outlet and for the first time in a long time it felt like people cared for Afghan lives.

The events that unfolded were to be expected. Killings increased, women could no longer go to school or work, children were sold for food money, domestic violence shooted up and freedom was a thing of the past. A thousand steps back you can say.

After a few weeks the news coverage stopped and the world seemed to forget. But as a second generation Afghan I have not forgotten what my country has and is going through. I now only see pictures of my people in suffering, in hunger, in fear and in despair. The roots to our culture are being cut off and replaced by ideologies far from what we believe in, and there is nothing we can do about it.

The most affected by the conflict are, of course, the women. They are paying the real price of this war. They had to give up everything and the saddest of it all is they are now being used as a form of currency. I was recently told a story of a six year old girl who was sold off to marriage just so that her family can have money for food.

Like most British Afghans, I still have family who remain in Kabul. I check in with them often to see how they are getting on, it's almost difficult to ask because you know deep down nothing will get better. I have a cousin who is a part of the LGBTQ community, before the take over he would walk the streets proud of who he was but now he doesn't leave the house. He lives with the fear that if he was made known to the taliban he would be killed or taken for ransom.

I am unsure if Afghanistan will ever recover or if there are any ways it can be improved, but I do know that the pain of Afghans are universal and that what has happened to us was never what we wanted.