I am amazing because I am still breathing, still fighting, and still holding on to my identity in a city that tries every single day to bury me alive.
I write this from Herat, Afghanistan—a city that once was the cradle of culture and poetry, but has now become a living prison for women. Specifically, from the streets of Jabrail, a place where being a Hazara and being a woman means carrying a double target on your back.Lately, the air here feels heavy with a suffocating fear. The Taliban’s morality police have turned our streets into a hunting ground. They arrived in their dark vans, targeting girls and women under the excuse of “bad hijab.” But what does that even mean? We were already fully covered in our traditional long scarves and coats. Our only “crime” was not wearing the heavy, suffocating black shroud or the burqa that they want to force upon us to erase our faces from the world.I watched with a bleeding heart as young girls, university students, and poor women selling small goods in the market to feed their children were dragged into those vans like criminals. When the community, broken by pain, came out to defend their daughters, the answer was immediate: loud, terrifying gunfire. They shot directly at peaceful protesters, leaving the streets stained with blood and filled with the screams of terrified children.Since that day, Herat has fallen into a ghostly silence. Every time a girl leaves her house, her mother kisses her goodbye as if it might be the last time. We are trapped in an apartheid where our education is banned, our jobs are taken, our movement is restricted, and now, even our physical presence on the street is treated as a sin.They can lock us inside four walls, they can force us under black veils, and they can try to silence our voices with bullets. But they cannot erase who we are. Through this pain, I have discovered an unbreakable inner strength. I am still here. My mind is free, and my story will not be silenced. I share this not just to complain, but to remind the world that behind the closed doors of Herat, a systematic erasure of humanity is happening right now. Please, do not look away.
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Photo credit: Image provided by the storyteller.
