As the Taliban cements its system of gender apartheid in Afghanistan, Malala Fund’s Gaisu Yari shares how girls and women have transformed their grief into a liberation movement.
When August comes, Afghans instinctively reach for the phone — calling friends, family and our scattered communities checking in, making sure we’re all still standing. A couple of days ago, I saw some friends. The first thing I asked was, “How are you?” One of them didn’t hesitate: “You know… it’s August.” Those words carry a weight we feel more than we can put into words.
In August 2021, everything changed for Afghans. Four years later, we remember the chaotic evacuation from Kabul, how we were scattered in different directions and how the Taliban’s system of gender apartheid began to take shape. By gender apartheid, we mean the Taliban’s deliberate system of laws and policies designed to erase girls and women from public life — banning their basic freedoms and from education, work and political participation. The Taliban’s return to power cost countless lives, inflicted deep and lasting trauma, tore families apart and pushed Afghanistan’s civil society to distant corners of the world.
For many of us, August reopens wounds. It is especially heavy for girls and women in Afghanistan whose dreams, careers and ambitions have been erased. But while the architecture of gender apartheid is cementing, the seeds of resistance are also growing. We carry doubt and grief, but also the resolve to fight back and hold the Taliban accountable.
As a women’s rights activist, my journey since August 2021 has been one of carrying memories — personal and collective — into spaces where they cannot be erased. Four years later, I have come to understand that one of the most powerful tools we have in resisting gender apartheid is to document and tell our stories even when it hurts. We must continue to share the truth of what is happening in Afghanistan. As Shaharzad Akbar, an activist pushing for accountability mechanisms, told me: “It’s okay to not be okay.” But grief cannot be where we stop, our fight for justice must continue.
When authoritarian regimes seek to erase girls and women’s rights, history and identity, activism is not optional. It is our responsibility to tell the truth and keep Afghan girls and women visible to the world.
Global solidarity and grassroots power
Four years into resistance, grassroots organisations, activists, girls and women — in Afghanistan and around the world — cannot carry this movement alone. These groups are shaping the narrative, documenting human rights abuses; using art, music, storytelling and activism to ensure Afghan girls and women remain a global priority and pushing back against the legitimisation of the Taliban.
Malala Fund partners including Afghans For A Better Tomorrow (an advocacy network of Afghan diaspora leaders); Defenders of Equality, Freedom, and Advancement for Women (DEFAW, a women-led group using art and activism to challenge Taliban restrictions); Rawadari (a human rights organisation documenting abuses and promoting freedom of belief); and Rukhshana Media (a women-run newsroom reporting from inside Afghanistan) are doing vital, and often dangerous, work to dismantle gender apartheid.
Artists like Aryana Sayeed have turned music into protest, dedicating her art to girls and women and using her platform to demand an end to gender apartheid through DEFAW. Rawadari recently announced the People’s Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan, aimed at documenting and exposing the Taliban’s systematic oppression of girls and women.
A bottom-up approach is essential. Flexible funding is the most effective way to sustain Afghan civil society and the movement for girls and women’s freedom. Malala Fund remains committed to supporting pathways to justice, building global solidarity and ensuring girls can continue learning.
The girls and women of Afghanistan are calling on allies around the world to join forces:
Name it: Urge your leaders to recognise and codify gender apartheid under international law.
Prosecute it: Support international legal action to hold the Taliban accountable.
End it: Demand policy and funding commitments that dismantle the Taliban’s system.
Global solidarity ensures our struggle is not fought in isolation, but as part of a united movement against oppression. August reminds us of our losses — but also of our will to fight back and win. From grief, we have built resistance. As we tell our stories, we grow the movement to end gender apartheid in Afghanistan — and prevent it from taking root anywhere else.
