Farhat Badakhsh
I was a girl who breathed through her dreams.
Not grand, world-changing ambitions—but simple hopes: a backpack full of books, a seat in a university classroom, and a path stretching toward freedom.
For me, living meant learning, helping, and having the right to choose—even the choice to drive through the streets of Kabul.
But today, for Afghan girls, “living” means silence.
A silence forced down our throats by the Taliban.
A silence that makes even breathing conditional.
Before the Taliban returned to power, some girls were kept from school due to poverty, tradition, or family pressure—but today, **every** Afghan girl is banned from education beyond sixth grade.
Not because of poverty.
Not because of culture.
But because of a dark ideology that sees women as sin and their very existence as crime.
I didn’t just lose access to university—
I lost myself.
My dreams—both small and big—were buried alive.
Even my simple wish to learn to drive, which others might dismiss as trivial, was my symbol of freedom:
hands on the wheel, wind in my hair, an endless road leading toward my future.
Now, the roads are closed to us.
Not by gates—but by fear.
Fear of being seen. Fear of being heard. Fear of simply existing.
Walking down the street is no longer a right—it’s a risk.
Because today, Kabul’s streets have become stages for abduction, humiliation, and repression of girls.
Four years have passed since the Taliban began suffocating our breaths.
One by one, our dreams have turned into regrets.
My deepest regret?
Never attending university.
Never getting the chance to support my sisters.
And never owning that little car I dreamed of driving toward freedom.
Yet—we still breathe.
Breaths that keep hope alive.
We wait for the day the Taliban are erased—not just from power, but from our streets, our minds, and our history.
The day girls return to school,
walk fearlessly through Kabul,
and I turn the key in my car to chase the dream they tried to steal.
Until that day,
we breathe—
not just to survive,
but to be free.
#AliveAfghanistan
#FallOfTheTaliban
#FreedomForWomenFreedomForAll
