KABUL — Three years into Taliban rule, Afghan women and girls are finding ways online to take back some of what was taken from them in 2021.
“The internet is our last hope,” said Beheshta, 24. “But nothing can replace real freedom.” Like other women interviewed, she spoke on the condition that only her first name be used out of concern that her comments could draw the ire of government officials.The Taliban would be hard-pressed to ban social media platforms outright, and adopting Chinese-style controls over the internet would be expensive.
With women banned from public parks, Efat primarily finds inspiration for her paintings online. Her latest work shows a tiger. “Women can be just as powerful as them,” she said.When the sun sets, Efat scrolls through her Instagram feed, where other artists post paintings of crying girls and of the huge Buddha statues in Bamian province that were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.
Every 24 hours, she presses a button on an application called Pi Network and then lets her phone engage in crypto mining in the background for the rest of the day. The application is popular in Afghanistan because it works on ordinary mobile phones and is free, apart from the cost of the electricity it consumes.
Most of the women and girls interviewed in Kabul said they had signed up for at least one online education course since the Taliban took power. The Taliban government has not explicitly banned online educational courses and could struggle to enforce such an order, given that many providers are headquartered abroad. But teachers and students worry that they might still be at risk.When authorities earlier this year began to detain women for failing to properly cover their hair, rumors spread that police were checking all phones for evidence of participation in online classes.