‘I sat at home for five years’: A former Afghan judge on what the future holds for women in Afghanistan

What does Afghanistan’s shockingly rapid fall to the Taliban mean for the future of Afghan women and girls? That’s what Najla Ayoubi, chief of Coalitions and Global Programs for Every Woman Treaty, a nonprofit focused on ending violence against women and children, is worried about this week.

Ayoubi lives in the U.S. now, but she was born in Afghanistan and was educated before the Taliban’s rise in the early 1990s. She studied abroad — unheard of at the time — in Britain and the Soviet Union and returned to become the first woman to be a judge in her Parwan province.

Her brother was murdered by the Hisb-e-Islami jihadi group while she was in the Soviet Union. Then her father was killed for his support of women’s and human rights — a traumatic event she still can’t talk about. After his death and with her own safety on the line, Ayoubi was forced to leave the judiciary. When the Taliban came to power, she and other women became homebound. Like so many other women and girls, she worked underground, where schools and beauty parlors were established out of the public eye. She used her tailoring skills to teach young women how to sew dresses.

“I sat at home for five years,” she said in a phone conversation this week. “I had been a judge, ruling and making important decisions. But under the Taliban I was not able to go outside without the company of a man. We had no one in the house to go buy groceries. So I would give money to my neighbor, to allow his 4-year-old son to go outside with me. ... I am angry that I was perceived so low in the society that being a judge, I was nothing compared to the 4-year-old boy.”

When the United States came in and the new government was established, women were called back to work. Ayoubi worked in the attorney general’s office and was part of the state-building and constitution process. And she carried on her activism.

Extremists continued to target her and threaten her life, so she sought asylum in the United States in 2015, where she kept working on women’s issues and human rights issues on behalf of Afghan women. But her hopes were shattered this week.

“I’m in close contact with my activists who are underground and most of them are hiding fearing for their lives. It’s been very emotional. I haven’t slept but a few hours since Friday because this is so close to me,” she said. “My family, my friends, my activist friends … there is no way for them to get out. All the borders have closed.”

There is speculation that the Taliban this time around might be less repressive, and open to letting women keep their more public roles in Afghan society. But so far, there’s little evidence of that, while some have reported that the Taliban is beating and torturing women. Ayoubi, given her experience, is far from optimistic.

She’s already heard stories that chill to the bone. “We are hearing of terrorists from other parts of the world coming [to Afghanistan] so that they can have women as property. ... We’re hearing of a few cases of young women being dragged and shipped in coffins to neighboring countries to be used as sex slaves. These stories aren’t coming to the media. That’s why people are hoping that the Taliban today isn’t the same.”

The Taliban has announced an “amnesty” for residents who supported the previous government but Ayoubi is skeptical and worried they will seek “revenge. … They will marry the wives and daughters of the [previous government’s] soldiers,” she said.

So what’s next for women in Afghanistan? “Afghans are survivors. We’ve now been in a war for 42 years. … When the Taliban came, I had entered an underground school. We had an underground beauty parlor. There was a school for children. I taught students how to sew dresses. I changed from being a judge to being a tailor. The conflict teaches you how to survive.” But the conflict doesn’t help women thrive.

-- Read more: “‘What About My Dreams?’: How the U.S. Abandoned Women in Afghanistan,” by Amie Ferris Rotman in Vanity Fair

Welcome back to Women Rule. I’m Shia Kapos, a POLITICO reporter based in Chicago, guest-hosting today while Katie Fossett is away. As always, it’s a busy week for news but Elizabeth Ralph and Maya Parthasarathy are all over it. Please send your feedback and story ideas to [email protected].

POLITICO Special Report

“What Kamala Harris’ Law School Years Reveal About Her Politics,” by Jesús A. Rodríguez for POLITICO Magazine: “Harris was introduced to protests as a toddler by her parents, who met as activists on the streets of Berkeley in the 1960s. At Howard University, she demonstrated in front of the South African Embassy in Washington to call for an end to apartheid. Her political memoirs are replete with stories about family members who felt emboldened to pursue democratic change, signaling that activism was virtually Harris’ birthright.

“But that demonstration was likely among her last as an outside agitator. By the time Harris spoke out about the cartoon at UC Hastings, she already had completed an internship with the Alameda County District Attorney’s office and was determined to work there. She soon would become a prosecutor and then, of course, a politician, immersing herself in the kinds of institutions and rules that her parents and Harris herself had once protested.

“Harris has long talked about wanting to ‘go inside the system’ to ‘change what needs to be changed.’ Yet by depicting herself as a progressive changemaker on issues like policing and immigration, while governing largely as a pragmatist, she often has befuddled the left. Some voters hoped that, as vice president, she would be able to push her more moderate boss, President Joe Biden, to the left. Instead, Harris herself at times has faced pushback from her own side of the aisle, for telling migrants not to come to the United States, for example, or failing to push harder for a minimum wage increase.

“What happened to the changemaking instinct that Harris exhibited at Hastings? Her law school years — the era of Harris’ life that perhaps has gotten the least public scrutiny to date — offer a window into how she thinks about her role as a politician and a Black woman in politics as she navigates being Biden’s No. 2, while also attempting to carve out her own political future.”

-- “Harris uses convening power to expand her political network,” by POLITICO’s Eugene Daniels

“‘Just Watching With Horror’: A Photographer in Afghanistan on the Eve of Collapse,” by Paula Bronstein for POLITICO Magazine: “The story was moving really, really fast. We’re all watching — I say ‘we,’ the media, both foreign and local — just watching with horror. Everything is going viral from Kabul. Everybody has a phone with a camera. And every step of the way, this disaster unfolding is being documented. The war today is run by social media — the war many years ago was not. Today, the Taliban wanted to show when they came to the gates of Mazar-e-Sharif. And that was shared by many, many Afghans. Every step of the way was getting tweeted out just like wildfire. ...

“I have been in the United States barely more than 24 hours. I’ve been getting message after message: ‘I know you left, but please help me.’ ‘We can’t go to the airport.’ ‘We’re waiting to hear from the United States,’ or ‘Canada is taking 20,000.’ They’re all like, how do we do this? How do we know when to go to the airport? It’s one thing for the U.S. to send 5,000 troops, but it’s quite another to have coordination on the ground. There’s been none of that.

“Being a photojournalist, you are connected with your subject — I don’t care if it’s a family, if it’s a place, it’s a culture that you want to understand. My first trip into Afghanistan was in December 2001. It really became my beat. What I covered since 2001 was just Afghans living against the backdrop of war. That’s what I wanted to show the world.”

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“‘My bosses were happy to destroy me’ — the women forced out of work by menopause,” by The Guardian’s Sirin Kale: “In 2019, Mara’s weekly performance review meetings grew intolerable; she would sit in a cramped conference room with her supervisors only to be told that she wasn’t performing well enough. ‘I felt like a child,’ says Mara, who is 48, lives in Hampshire and works as a public servant. ‘They would tell me off. They’d say: “You won’t meet this deadline, will you? You didn’t put a paragraph in this document.”’

“A year earlier, Mara had had a hysterectomy, to alleviate her endometriosis. Afterwards, in surgically induced menopause, she began to experience debilitating brain fog, anxiety and depression. ‘I was drowning,’ she says. ‘I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t see or think.’ Doctors prescribed antidepressants and oestrogen gel, but nothing helped. Mara could barely function at work. ‘I couldn’t retain anything,’ she says. ‘I had no memory. I couldn’t see or think clearly enough to do my work. I had no confidence at all. I thought I was useless.’

“Mara told her supervisors she had depression and anxiety, and submitted a doctor’s note, but they put her on a first warning. At the time she didn’t realise her depression was linked to the menopause — all she knew was that she needed help. (In the autumn of 2019, a specialist explained that her symptoms were caused by the menopause, and provided her with a doctor’s note explaining this to her employers, but they continued to monitor her performance, as they’d done previously.)”

“Billie Jean King Wants Athletes to Follow the Money,” by The New Yorker’s Louisa Thomas: “I didn’t want to come in with one dime less than equal money. We got it through sponsorship. Bristol-Myers was so good to us. These things can happen when somebody has power and can say yes. We really got lucky. But, if you notice, everything we did, we always tried to do everything behind the scenes first. We tried everything behind the scenes first.

“I feel like most of the athletes do not understand the business side of things. Athletes say, What should I do? What should I learn about? I go, Learn the other side of the story — learn the business side. Most players just want more money. And I’m, like, Just understand their side, so when you sit down to speak, and have dialogue, you actually have some understanding and empathy for them. And, if you can show that, I think they’ll start to think about you in a different way as well. It’s just about relationships — everything.”

IN HEALTH -- The best state overall for women’s health care? Massachusetts. The worst? Oklahoma. Read more in this analysis by HealthCare Insider’s Colleen McGuire.

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LISTEN -- “Rumors” by Lizzo ft. Cardi B. Lizzo’s first release in more than two years is a bop that hits back at all the harmful discourse that’s surrounded her rise to fame. Following the song’s release, Lizzo spoke out against the “fatphobic, racist and hurtful” comments she faces as a Black woman in an emotional Instagram live. But no matter what the haters say, she’s still here. From Vulture: “‘Rumors’ is a song only these two artists can make, a clapback for anyone who counted these two out or tried to tear them down. Both stars blew up unexpectedly after years of hard work. ... Megastardom was an uncomfortable fit. Getting them to comply with the coyness and perfection we demand from pop stars was a losing game. They’re irreverent, funny, and very online, the kind of people who routinely get themselves in trouble for doing or saying too much, the kind of celebrities people love to loathe, the kind of internet poster you can almost expect to hear from if you talk too much s--t. Lizzo and Cardi use ‘Rumors’ to remind the audience why they clap back as harshly and as routinely as they do. Women of color get less pay but more rules, less opportunities but more scrutiny.”

ON MY WATCH LIST -- Netflix’s “Tuca & Bertie,” an animated sitcom about two anthropomorphic female birds. Check out this New Yorkerinterview with creator and showrunner Lisa Hanawalt (who is also the designer behind “Bojack Horseman”).

Transitions

Molly Mitchell is joining Bully Pulpit Interactive to lead the firm’s marketing and external comms. She most recently was states press secretary at the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, and is a 2018 DCCC and Axios alum. … Patrice Snow is joining DC Vote as comms director. She previously was comms director and national press secretary for TogetherFund, and is a Tom Steyer campaign alum.

Hilary Ranieri will be director of government affairs for national security at Planet Labs Federal. She previously was deputy chief of staff for Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) and senior adviser for the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. … McGuireWoods Consulting is adding Jessica Woodie as a VP for digital (previously at the Republican National Convention), Kate Zaykowski as VP for comms (previously at the Texas Railroad Commission) and Ellie Barmish as a grassroots and digital specialist.

Gaby Hurt is now press secretary for Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). She most recently was press secretary for the House Foreign Affairs GOP, and is a Trump White House and Marco Rubio alum. … Ashley Gunn is now a public policy manager for legislative affairs at Coinbase. She previously was senior adviser for Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.). … Sarah Monte and Amanda Qualls have launched Amethyst Operations, a boutique operations consultancy. Monte most recently was systems director for Biden’s inaugural committee and is a Biden and Pete Buttigieg campaign alum. Qualls previously was national human resources director for the Buttigieg campaign. (h/t Playbook)