Local concern for women amid chaos in Afghanistan

The chaotic images in Afghanistan are especially troubling for women, fearful they are watching 20 years of progress disintegrate overnight.

Men and women alike are saying the same thing: they worry most for the women and girls of Afghanistan whose lives likely will return to the way they were 20 long years ago.

“As a woman, I am devastated,” says Ariana Anjaz.

In her day job, Anjaz is the senior director of the Afghan Health Initiative. But on this day, after the Taliban once again took  control of Afghanistan’s largest city and, effectively, the country, she is just another person with deep ties to a country the world is watching fall apart.

She says she feels the U.S. has abandoned Afghanistan.

“I do,” she said. “I feel that there should have been different actions taken. It was, you know, very rapid. It was not well-thought-out.”

She believes those who will suffer most are women and girls.

“It just seems like history is repeating itself,” said Anjaz, “a very violent one. One where a woman can’t work, where a woman cannot be seen outside. One where they need a man to shadow their every behavior, their every move.”

These images of girls in school, she says, will likely fade into history. The chaos of the last couple of days is all too familiar to her family. Her father fled Afghanistan 30 years ago with the Taliban poised to take control. He later returned to smuggle out his parents.

Still, she doesn’t regret the U. S. involvement in her ancestral home. But “you have to do the due diligence to make sure you’re not just coming in, but you are also exiting with poise,” she says, “exiting with the people in mind.”

And she says it does not appear that happened this time.

Now she and others will have to wait to see if those who want to leave can get out.

©2021 Cox Media Group