When a Regime Erases Women, the World Must Call It a Crime

I am not here to tell a tragic story. I am here to tell the truth as I lived it — about what happens when a system decides women must disappear.

I was born Afghan in Iran. But the country where I was born never accepted me as its own. I spoke the language. I lived there. I built my life there. And still, I was treated as temporary, replaceable, invisible.

Taekwondo saved me. Sport taught me something regimes fear: when a woman trains her body, she trains her mind. And when a woman controls her body, she becomes difficult to control.

When I joined Afghanistan’s national team, I was praised as a symbol, a “gift” for the country. But I watched how other girls were treated — ignored, controlled, reduced to decoration. Boys were invested in, while girls were managed.

I was told to cover during training. After winning a competition, officials asked me to wear a hijab at the medal ceremony. I had not fought in one, but powerful men were watching. That was when I understood: they were not afraid of my results. They were afraid of my visibility.

Then the Taliban returned.

I remember the day Kabul fell. I stood by the window as people began running home. The announcement spread: the Taliban were in the city. Within hours, women disappeared from the streets. When I went outside fully covered, I felt something I had never felt before. Men looked at me as if I did not belong in public space. As if my presence was a mistake. That was the moment I understood: Afghan women were not simply oppressed. We were being erased.

At the same time, my mother began receiving calls from relatives in northern Afghanistan. They were crying. “They are taking our boys.” From Badakhshan and villages with little power to resist. Boys were being taken to madrasas in Kabul and in Pakistan. Let’s be clear: this is not education. It is indoctrination. It is how a generation is destroyed.

We do not want to live under the Taliban. We want a free Afghanistan. Yes, Afghanistan is a Muslim country. It is also a country of many ethnicities, beliefs and identities. All deserve protection. All deserve dignity. Religion deserves respect. It does not deserve weaponization.

The international community must stop legitimizing the Taliban through language. They are called an “Islamic Emirate.” They are described as a government. This normalization has consequences. They were terrorists yesterday. They are terrorists today.

I know this because they crossed borders to silence me. They sent rape threats. Death threats. Messages describing in detail how they would kill me. Not because I carried a weapon — but because I spoke.

This is what terrorism looks like.

And yet the world remains cautious, soft, careful. Because labeling the Taliban clearly would require action. Because recognition creates responsibility. Because normalization is easier than confrontation.

There is one step the international community could take that would change everything: recognize gender apartheid as a crime under international law.

Gender apartheid is not culture. It is not tradition. It is not faith. It is a system of domination that segregates, excludes and erases women from public life. Recognizing it as a crime would block political normalization. It would delegitimize the Taliban’s rule. It would shift the framework from humanitarian concern to legal accountability. This is not symbolic. It is strategic.

Sport taught me another lesson: discipline creates resistance. That is why the Taliban banned women from sport. Because a woman who controls her body threatens systems built on control.

Today, I live under police protection. Not because I am violent, but because I refuse silence.

But the danger is not only the Taliban. It is the institutions that shake their hands. The lobbyists who clean their image. The officials who provide platforms in the name of engagement.

People ask me why they are so angry — why they threaten rape, death, execution. The answer is simple. First, I am a woman. Second, I am a free woman. Third, I oppose their ideology. And fourth, I know exactly what they are doing. That is what they fear.

I left Afghanistan seeking safety. The Taliban’s ideology followed me to Europe. Still, I speak. Because when women disappear from streets, classrooms, stadiums, and workplaces, a country loses more than half its population. It loses its future.