How one young woman escaped the Taliban in pursuit of education

For one young woman, fleeing her homeland was the only way to get an education

Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series examining the realities of life for women and girls under Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

For Bahara, the only way to get an education was to flee the only home she’d ever known. Bahara — whose last name and other identifying details we’re omitting for her safety — lived in Afghanistan until 2024, when she escaped the Taliban’s oppressive regime and came to Canada. Now, she’s trying to fight for other Afghan women who also want to pursue an education. 

Under Taliban control, all Afghan girls over the age of 12 are denied access to education. A recent UNESCO report estimates 1.4 million Afghan girls have been deprived of secondary schooling since 2021. And more recently, the Taliban has become even more repressive, issuing a decree that women may not speak in public. Many girls like Bahara have turned to online learning resources such as app-based English language programs, risking the Taliban’s wrath. Bahara even passed on what she learned in secret to other girls. 

“I just wanted to try to keep studying,” she said. “It was the only hope we had, and so it was a bit scary for us as well and not safe to do that. But we would prefer to accept that risk rather than being uneducated and having to do nothing and just accept whatever [the] Taliban would say.”

The last few months of Bahara’s life in Afghanistan grew increasingly dangerous. Other young girls were being arrested under false allegations of not being properly veiled. 

“We wouldn't see them again,” she said. “We didn't know what would happen to them.”

Bahara made the decision to leave in early 2024, when she was still under 20 years old, but actually escaping was extremely dangerous. She couldn’t meet the Taliban’s demands of traveling with a male chaperone because her father didn’t have a passport and her brother was too young. Instead, she traveled with a different family, pretending to be a relative, to cross the border into Iran. She then journeyed alone to Pakistan, where she lived for a few months before finally flying to British Columbia where a full scholarship to a private school awaited her through Women Leaders of Tomorrow, a nonprofit committed to opening educational pathways for Afghan women and girls. 

Bahara settled quickly into her new life and keeps in touch with her family. She wants to study law and political science in the hope of one day returning to her homeland where she can help write new policies so future generations of girls can go to school, pursue careers, and live freely and equally. Bahara encourages others to support organizations like WLT and calls on the international community to sever all ties with the Taliban to prevent normalizing their laws against women.

“Women and girls in Afghanistan will always stay resilient and powerful, and we are never going to step back and give up fighting for our rights. We will keep fighting and we will keep trying to pursue education in any possible way,” Bahara said. “I'm sure if a Talib was raised by an educated woman, he would not be a Talib. So I think [the] Taliban should change their ideology — they should change themselves.”

For more on the history of women in Afghanistan, check out our previous story: Afghan women got the right to vote before the U.S. What happened?

—Story by contributing writer Cambrie Juarez