In such a noisy world, silence has fallen on Afghan women. Nothing more is being said about what is happening to them. Only the decrees of Afghanistan's Islamist leader Haibatullah Akhundzada − each one reducing further what remains of their freedom − remind us that in Afghanistan, gender determines the right to exist in society or not. The slow suffocation of half the population, which began in March 2022 with the banning of high school for girls, continues. At the end of August 2024, a morality law further reinforced the repression. In Kandahar, women are no longer allowed to have cell phones. To describe what it's like, one has to go there. While the picture is bleak, some women still hope to influence the country's future.

Zeinab, 34, has been protesting against the Taliban order in Kabul since 2021, and is one of the few early activists still living there. Arrested in late 2022 and then released, she frequently moves to keep her whereabouts hidden. After two canceled appointments, for security reasons, the interview took place over the phone. "All my friends have gone abroad. I live alone with my elderly mother; my husband divorced me and took our daughter to live in Iran," she said. She used to work with Abdullah Abdullah, the chief executive of the government defeated by the Taliban in 2021. As a project manager on gender issues, she was involved in women's rights and worked with children at an NGO.

"My husband wanted me to stop protesting, but I had to go on expressing my anger. He couldn't accept that. My mother isn't opposed to my struggle. She asks me to be careful, saying she only has me and I only have her. We survive with the help of two uncles." The Taliban have silenced all open opposition. Arrests, pressure on activist's families and the disappearance of independent media leave no place for expression other than on social media and within circles of friends.

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