A young girl living in Taliban-run Afghanistan provided the top UN rights body with rare, anonymous testimony from within the country on Tuesday describing a life of “slavery”.
Filmed from behind in front of a white screen, with only the black outline of her head covering visible, the girl identified as Laila recalled what it was like before the movement swept back to power nearly three years ago.
Before that, women and girls “were free”, she said in the recording as the body met in Geneva to address the rights situation in the country.
“But now we are not free. We are like slaves.”
Afghan girls are like “birds with broken wings”, she said.
“They are still trying to fly, and they still want to find an opportunity and fly as… high as they can.”
The UN has described the situation in the country as “gender-based apartheid”.
Last year, the executive director of UN Women Sima Bahous warned that the situation was so dire that suicidal thoughts were “everywhere” for women in Afghanistan.
In her testimony, Laila said she knew several women who had taken their own lives after they were captured and badly beaten by men using the “excuse” that they were not wearing a “proper hijab”.
“I’m sure that it’s an excuse, because girls are really afraid. They always try to wear black, a scarf, black coat, everything,” she said.
Laila said she herself constantly worried what would happen if security forces captured her.
“Do they kill me?” she asked.
In particular, she said she was “really worried about my future”.
After girls were banned from going to secondary schools, she has been stuck at home, helping her mother, learning to cook various dishes.
“This is not my future,” she insisted.
“I lost many opportunities in my life… I face depression and I feel helpless.”
But, she stressed, “I didn’t give up, and I will never give up”.
“I want to have a bright future. I want to become a leader. I want to become the voice of all Afghan girls.”
Laila stressed the urgent need for international support.
“I appeal to the international community, actually I beg them, to keep supporting the girls and women of Afghanistan, especially in education and work,” she said.