How an Afghan woman who fled the Taliban is fighting for others like her
- Rights activist Sara Seerat’s life was upended when the Taliban took over, leaving her constantly worried about other women living under the regime
- After months in hiding and a stressful trip via Pakistan, Seerat now lives in Berlin and aims to help women everywhere, including in Ukraine
Almost as soon as the Taliban seized power last August, Sara Seerat lost her job and her bank account was frozen. She’d been an adviser to the Afghan High Council for Women, which was then under the Ministry for Women’s Affairs – but that life was upended overnight.
After the militant group took over, Seerat, an advocate for women’s rights and female journalists, was interrogated. One of her brothers and two cousins were also detained after a September protest calling for the protection of women’s rights.
“I was sitting in my office when I heard that the Taliban were entering Kabul. I just had time to grab my laptop and some papers, and had to leave everything else behind,” she recalled. “I was working with women and for women, but now that office doesn’t exist and everything has been disrupted.”
With her parents and siblings, she moved from her home province to the capital Kabul, where they stayed while looking for solutions.
“I was on the evacuation list for the United States. But it was just me and not my family. How would I dare to leave them behind? I couldn’t do that, so I started searching around for other places where I could take my family with me,” she said.
