Neighbours: Afghanistan

OTHER STORIES RELATED TO AFGHANISTAN Photo Feature: Bloody Justice

To be a women under the brutal Taliban rule was to be condemned to a life worse then hell. So in the weeks following the collapse of the regime throughout most of Afghanistan, the eyes of the world turned to the women of Kabul for indications of the nation's re-emergence. How will they respond after suffering under the most gender-repressive regime in modern history? Will they burn their burqas in flaming heaps, or storm government buildings to demand jobs and better healthcare? Or are they so traumatised that they still fear to leave the walls of their homes?

A SMILE CONCEALED: Even as many women rediscover freedom, they remain apprehensive

Somewhere between the two scenarios, the reactions of many Kabul women to the sudden Taliban departure have been small, tentative steps to explore a new sense of freedom. On the streets, women tend to remain fully veiled, although many feel freer to travel without the accompaniment of a male relative, as was required under the Taliban. In the residential Makroyan neighbourhood, women at an outdoor bakery no longer hide themselves from public view, and the elderly women tending the fire remove their burqas head-to-toe for safety's sake. Many women have re-applied for jobs they lost when the Taliban entered the city in 1996. Others eagerly await the chance to continue their education in the open and without fear of reprisals.

Conditions for women are still appalling by international standards. The maternity death rate, for example, is the second highest in the world. The demographics of Kabul have changed, as many educated and professional women fled the country and many rural women with traditional backgrounds flocked to the city. Under the Taliban, rules were promulgated by the omnipresent Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice that banned women from speaking or laughing loudly, attending school, riding bicycles or motor cycles, moving around without a burqa, wearing make-up or shoes that "click". Retribution was severe and ranged from public whipping to spending months in jail. Almost everyone suffered in silence as the Taliban regime clamped down on the media and left no independent avenue for complaints. It was a brutal attempt to return Afghanistan into a medieval era in a mistaken zeal to purify society and rid it of western influences.

However, of the Kabul women who stayed in the city during the past five years, many are beginning to reveal how they rebelled in small ways against Taliban oppression. And, already, a few brave and ambitious women are leading by example, emerging from behind the psychological veil imposed by the Taliban and reclaiming their lost identities. Profiles of three such women:

" My best years were taken away from me"

AFTER THE PAUSE: Said re-enrols in the university to pursue her dream

One of the first female students to return to the Kabul University campus last week, 28-year-old Najiba Said plucked up her courage and re-registered for pre-med classes that were suddenly interrupted five years ago when the Taliban seized power. Responding to an announcement on Radio Afghanistan the day before, Said arrived with two former classmates, all in their late 20s now, clad in identity-erasing blue burqas. "We stayed up most of the night talking about whether it would be safe to go to the campus," says Said. "Even though it was announced on the radio, and the new authorities say we may study and work, we haven't yet shaken off our fear of the past years. I think it will take time before most women feel free of fear."

She and her classmates kept their faces veiled as they shyly gave their names to administrators with whom they had conversed openly until September 1996. Still nervous about speaking to foreigners, Said recounted the afternoon of September 28 that year, when she learned her education had been banned: "I felt my world fall apart. I wept in anger because I had been made a prisoner without having committed a crime." Said dreamt of becoming a dentist. But she spent the next four years in her family's three-room home, rarely leaving its mud-baked walls, helping her diabetic mother care for her five younger siblings. "It was as if there was a long pause in my life," says Said. "I feel as though my best years were taken away from me."

Last year, in what Said describes as "the only memorable event for me during the time of the Taliban", she married Abdu Said, a former civil engineer who has worked part time in a radio repair shop since the Taliban made redundant his government position. "It was difficult. We had almost no income. Abdu wanted to start a family, and I was still hoping I would have a career someday," she says. Now that the Taliban has left, her husband fully supports her decision to re-enrol in medical school, she says, even though it puts plans for a family on hold and the couple are already older than most new parents in Afghanistan.

As she leans across an administrator's desk to sign the re-enrolment form, Said asks when classes will begin. Perhaps in the spring if enough former students return, she is told. Or earlier, if the funds can be found to repair all the broken windows and the heating system. She says determinedly: "We women are far behind. But, inshallah, we will soon catch up with them."