Winning Essays 2025 - Winning Essays
2025

Days after the October 7th brutal attack by Hamas, settlers murdered six Palestinians in the West Bank in two separate attacks. B'Tselem, an Israeli nonprofit that documents human rights violations in the West Bank, documented and investigated more than 30 occasions of settlers’ violence in the last three years. “The reports do not reflect all incidents of settler violence in the West Bank, but only those that B'Tselem was able to document and investigate,” they write. Yesh Din, another Israeli nonprofit, claims that between 2005 and 2024, nearly 19 out of 20 settler violence cases ended up without an indictment.

However, a look at the Hebrew Wikipedia reveals an odd result: there is no article about settlers’ violence. While there is a detailed article about this issue in six other languages, Israelis who wish to read about it in their native language through the most popular encyclopedia in the world - simply can’t do that.

As a person who defines himself as a lefty Israeli, I found it bothersome. As an investigative journalism MA student, I saw it as a challenge: to understand why there is no trace of this vicious phenomenon in the main encyclopedia Israelis use.

What started for me as a “challenge accepted” kind of anecdote turned out to be a story I’ve been chasing for nearly a year. It led me to realise, beyond doubt, that the disappearance of the settlers' violence article from Hebrew Wikipedia is not a coincidence. Furthermore, I learned that this missing article is just the tip of the iceberg: well-organised settlers took over Hebrew Wikipedia in a long process that has been happening since 2010, and have been manipulating dozens of articles.

Itamar Eshpar, 52, from Israel, tries to fight it. He got to editing Wikipedia by chance. He is a sound engineer with a passion for biblical criticism - a general term referring to the mysteries behind the identity of the bible’s writers, the circumstances that led them to write, and the sources they based their writing on. As part of Itamar’s interest, he often talks to religious people.

“There was this one conversation with someone I know about the Mount Sinai story [where Moses received the Ten Commandments],” Itamar recalls. “The guy told me that this was a historical event, and I obviously responded ‘no, it’s a myth’. He insisted it was a historical event that actually happened and told me to check Wikipedia. I couldn't believe what I saw: the article said it was a historical event that became a myth.”

Before deepening into this story, I came across some bizarre Wikipedia edits. I believe many of us have: from Charlie Sheen’s article stating he’s “half man, half cocaine”, to a picture of a cockroach in an entry about Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan - this has become a classic way to troll the world. The thing I was unaware of is the possibility that more subtle edits, like the one in the Mount Sinai entry, can stick around for years. How is that possible?

“I came across a news report”, Itamar recalls, “stating that more than 100 people participated in ‘Zionist Editing in Wikipedia Workshop’ which taught them to edit Wikipedia articles. The organisers were Yesha council [an umbrella organisation of all settlements in the West Bank] and a non-profit called My Israel [founded by former prime minister Naftali Bennett and former Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked, both pro-settlements]. That clarified to me the phenomenon I witnessed in Wikipedia.”

This workshop, which occurred in 2010, aimed to bolster its reach by publishing articles accusing Wikipedia of being “lefty” and “atheist” and called the readers to join as editors. These articles included examples for possible edits, which could be considered legitimate according to Wikipedia guidelines.

“Instead of ‘Dinosaurs were a superorder of reptiles that went extinct about 65 million years ago’ [the articles] recommended ‘Dinosaurs is the name given to a group of fossil remains of reptile-like creatures found since the late 18th century’”

Itamar believes that this kind of editing has continued today, specifically through a right-wing Israeli think tank, known as the Kohelet Forum. According to a checkuser, whose role allows them to monitor a user’s IP address, a staff member from the organisation told him that "many users edit Wikipedia from the Forum's offices”.

This comes after several reports claiming that the think tank employed Wikipedia editors specifically to edit articles on politically polarising issues in Israeli society, including, but not limited to, articles on the controversial ‘judicial reform bill’.

Articles on the Israel-Palestine conflict are also prime targets for right-wing editors. For example, Itamar says, “the entry ‘Israeli occupation of the West Bank’ was renamed ‘Israeli rule in Judea and Samaria’ by a narrow vote. Yet, historically, no one ever called this area ‘Judea and Samaria’ before 1968… when a term like ‘Judea and Samria’ is normalised in Wikipedia, it influences broader public discourse”.

While I found these findings solid - the workshop, the Kohelet Forum involvement, and a tweet by a right-extremist politician calling his followers to edit Wikipedia (one of the commenters wrote that “there’s an organised right-wing group dealing with it”) - it was still not clear to me how this takeover was executed. To get to the bottom of it, I had to learn about the mechanism Wikipedia is based on.

Wikipedia, in all languages, has a hierarchy. At the bottom are the new editors and senior editors; above them are the monitors, who check the new editors’ edits; Those who decide who are the monitors are called admins. Admins have the power to ban editors for a time-limited period ranging from a day to a month.

“I think [certain language editions] lack certain policies related to admin behaviour", says Zarine Kharazian, a PhD student at the University of Washington, who researched how far-right activists took over Croatian Wikipedia. “For example, the Croatian Wikipedia didn’t have a blocking policy that governed how admins blocked people”.

At the very top of the hierarchy stand the bureaucrats – in Israel there are only two of them at the moment – and they have a lot of power: they can ban editors for good, they can lock certain articles from further edits, and they can force through certain edits if the community can’t make a decision.

Data from the Wikimedia Foundation highlights how concentrated these hierarchies can be. My classmates and I found that as of 2025, only 11% of editors in Hebrew Wikipedia were active each month. While it is natural that many editors will not be active, this still highlights how a relatively small group of individuals have significant influence. We don’t have precise data on the hierarchies above this, but it is clear that control becomes even more concentrated as you move up the chain.

It is difficult to prove that far-right editors hold this control, but Itamar claims that this is made possible through networking: “One person recruits another. So, beyond just increasing their numbers, they also managed to reach key positions within Wikipedia.”

When it comes to deciding on policy in the Hebrew language edition, there have been complaints of a lack of transparency around key policy decisions, as discussions over the Hebrew edition’s policy rarely happen on public forums. De facto, that means many users are excluded from the process.

This has reportedly allowed administrators to introduce new policies without consulting other editors, including one that places administrators effectively in charge of political discussions on the site.

This is similar to the case of Croatia, where Zarine remarks that, “on the Croatian Wikipedia there was a lot of coordination among this small group in telegram chats, which can be hard to find evidence of because they’re private”.

Many Hebrew users have since complained of their accounts being blocked either from administrator positions or from the editing process entirely, on unsubstantiated grounds of politically biased editing, or for simply criticising the administrators. These reports note that these charges were not applied to right-wing editors, including some who made public statements with clear political prejudice.

“If the project is captured”, Zarine says, “there can be a lot of back-and-forth disagreements.”

“The key,” she says, “is who the admins disagree with? If it’s with random people, then that’s probably not a big deal… [in Croatian Wikipedia] there were experienced contributors, who had previously contributed in good faith, who suddenly found themselves unable to contribute”.

User, Danny-w, a ‘veteran Hebrew editor’ of 18 years, had his candidacy for an elected bureaucrat position cancelled due to him being suddenly blocked, allegedly for having mass recruited to bias polls. According to the complaint, submitted to the Wikimedia Foundation by a few liberal editors, no evidence was given to substantiate this claim.

The blocking of Danny-w was part of two successive waves of mass-blocks that occurred in June 2024, in which 48 users lost access to their accounts. Complainant editors claim this was done to influence the upcoming elections on November 16 2024.

What’s more, Itamar claims that in the run-up to the November elections, right-wing editors had been organising themselves to exploit Wikipedia’s system of allocating votes to editors.

Itamar says that editor accounts on Wikipedia are only entitled to vote if they have made consistent edits to pages over the last three months, regardless of what these edits were or whether they involved pushing falsehoods on the site.

He explains, “people started reviewing their [the right-wing editors] edit history and saw they were making tons of tiny edits, like adding a comma or a footnote, just to quickly gain voting rights”.

According to a survey published by the Israeli Wikimedia chapter from July to September 2024, roughly 61 per cent of respondent editors were dissatisfied with the administration of Hebrew Wikipedia and claimed that conflicts on the site were not being adequately resolved.

The survey also says that over a fifth of respondents claimed to have faced harassment and bullying on the site, of which a disproportionate number of complainants were women.

Where do we go from here?

The importance of Wikipedia has gone beyond being simply a source of information. To some, Wikipedia is a reflection of the accumulated knowledge of society, which is why it also reflects the ideological struggles and debates ongoing in the public sphere.

To Itamar, “Wikipedia’s original vision is incredible: all human knowledge should be freely accessible to everyone, in every language… If we allow ideologues to rewrite facts, we lose the greatest knowledge resource ever created”.

The Wikimedia Foundation does not often step in to resolve local issues, following its founding vision of a free-to-edit platform.

But as Itamar sees it, well-meaning editors on the Hebrew language edition have their hands tied.

“Many editors simply gave up because debating with religious editors felt like a never-ending battle. [Right-wing editors] use tactics that include mild verbal aggression, condescension, and even humiliation of the opposing side. Many secular editors simply don’t want to deal with that”.

According to the Israeli Wikimedia chapter’s survey, 53 per cent of respondent editors advocate for stricter enforcement of existing procedures, whereas 50 per cent believed that new procedures were needed.

The Wikimedia Foundation did not respond to my request to comment on the Hebrew Wikipedia situation. The takeover of the Croatian edition lasted about 7 years before the Foundation stepped in to resolve it and permanently ban the editors involved.

“It was a local governance effort, and it took a long time.” Zarine says: “It really was when it started getting news coverage that it was acted upon…and then the Wikimedia foundation was like, ‘we have to ban these people’.”

22nd February 2022 marks a pivotal moment in global affairs when the previous German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the current global order in a Zeitenwende moment in his speech to the Federal Government (Die Bundesregierung), a historic turning point. This initially was a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to which I agree. In this concise essay, I will argue that the Zeitenwende statement is also applicable to the latest political transformation of Syria in relation to the Middle East. To this end, a succinct analysis of the evolving regional dynamics in the aftermath of Syria's internal political transformation due to the defeat of Bashar Al-Assad's regime and the subsequent rise of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) will be offered.

“Commerce, not chaos… give them a chance of greatness…” (Trump, 2025). This was Trump's declaration to the global stage of a Zeitenwende moment in Syria, indicating the lifting of US sanctions on the country. Following the December 8 revolution, HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa established a transitional government that adopted a pro-Western approach by appointing a new cabinet called the National Dialogue Conference Preparatory Committee (Afandi, 2025). The committee's agenda will be determined by the demands of the Syrian public, including reforms to public welfare, the prosecution of war criminals, and the promotion of reconciliation with minority groups, such as the Druze and Arab Christians. To achieve these goals, the committee will engage in constructive dialogue with various municipal and governorate officials (ibid.). These measures also serve to assist with EU relations by loosening sanctions through channels of 'constructive criticism'. The aim is to improve the state in line with Western standards of governance, which underscores Syria's political transformation. It should be noted that there are persisting domestic challenges for HTS as Syria currently endures terrible sectarian violence. As stated by Sinem et al. (2025), 800 Alawite Syrians have been killed by Assad loyalists. The matter of integrating the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Druze militia of the Southern Operations Room is currently ongoing. Therefore, it is in Syria's best interests to engage in reconciliation with marginalised groups within the country because it necessitates a key part of Syria's desire to avoid being seen as a threatening actor in the Middle East, along with its reconstruction (ibid.). It is important to reiterate that Syria's political transformation is in transition. Changes regarding regional and international cooperation must therefore be made in synchrony with reforms from within. To achieve this objective, it is imperative that Ahmed al-Sharaa establish diplomatic relations with the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf, the EU and the USA to facilitate further support for economic and political reconstruction alongside internal reconstruction to further its change and ensure that the fall of Bashar Al-Assad remains a Zeitenwende moment and not a ‘false dawn’.

Considering Syria's transformation, the global ramifications of this Zeitenwende are set to redefine the dynamics of relations in the Middle East, extending beyond the easing of Western sanctions and the reconstruction of the Syrian economy. As Rojhelati (2024) explains, this change can be considered a 'domino' effect on the regional dynamics of the Middle East. Poroskoun's (2025) report suggests that Russia's capacity to exert influence over events in the Middle East has been significantly curtailed due to the political transformation in Syria. This is attributable to the fact that Putin's prior alliance with Syria was contingent on Al-Assad's government. From a military standpoint, Russia forfeits access to the leased Khmemim Air Base and Tartus Naval Base, which functioned as a logistics hub in the eastern Mediterranean and Africa (ibid.). Lacking full control over these hubs, Syria perceives no reliance on Russian military presence and has gained leverage over Russia by threatening a blockade (ibid.). Therefore, it can be argued that Russia's status as an important security actor in the Middle East is diminishing. Moreover, Assad's fall represents a substantial setback for Iran following defeats in Gaza and Lebanon, as it will severely restrict the Iranian-backed 'Front Resistance' axis' access to the Mediterranean Sea (Rojhelati, 2024). Therefore, if this geographical connection is severed, Iranian support for proxy groups will no longer be sustainable. These groups have historically served as tools for balancing regional power and influence (ibid.). Consequently, Iranian influence in the region has also been reduced, much like Russia. This creates a favourable opportunity for Jordan and Israel to advance their geopolitical objectives in relation to the new Syrian state by encouraging collaborative regional initiatives. Examples of such range from halting arms smuggling from Syria to Jordan, limiting the resurgence of terrorist groups within the region and limiting potential Turkish or Iranian hegemony in the region via lobbying for a balanced Syrian trade and foreign policy (Winter, 2025). In the specific case of Jordan, it can also serve as a mediator between Israel and Syria once the regime has stabilised in relation to the occupation of the lands beyond the Golan Heights, whilst respecting the 1974 ceasefire agreement (ibid.). Therefore, this Zeitenwende moment marks a shift in the political landscape of Syria. It presents opportunities for domestic reform, as well as for Syria and its neighbours to cooperate politically and economically, fostering a better future for the Middle East.

In conclusion, the political transformation in Syria marks a significant shift in the regional dynamics of the Middle East, thereby validating Olaf Scholz's statement. Despite the domestic issues currently being experienced by Syria, steps are being taken to address the internal reconstruction required for socioeconomic and political change. In addition, this essay provides a concise overview of the changes in foreign policy dynamics in the Middle East, which have resulted in a significant shift in the regional landscape due to Syria. The developments have implications for various stakeholders, with some, such as Russia and Iran, facing setbacks, while others, notably Turkey, Jordan and Israel, are presented with opportunities for enhanced cooperation with the new Syria. Even though Olaf Scholz's Zeitenwende speech was aimed at Europe and Ukraine, this sentiment is clearly mirrored in the Middle East following the reinvention of Syria on the global stage.

Bibliography

• Adar, Sinem; Asseburg, Muriel; Azizi, Hamidreza; Klein, Margarete; Steinberg, Guido (2025): The political transition in Syria: Regional and international interests, SWP Comment, No. 11/2025, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), Berlin.
• Afandi, E. S. (2025). From Dictatorship to Transition: Syria’s Future in a Changing Middle East. Insight Turkey, 27(1), 75–85.
• Olaf Scholz. (2022). Regierungserklärung von Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz am 27. Februar 2022. [Online]. Die Bundesregierung. Last Updated: 27 February 2022. [Accessed 20 May 2025].
• Poroskoun, G. (2025). Despite Efforts to Remain in Syria, Russia Is Losing Its Status as an Important Security Actor in the Middle East. Institute for National Security Studies.
• Rojhelati, Z. (2024). Post-Assad Syria: What the Fall of the Regime Means for the World. Rudaw Research Center.
• Stokols. (2025). In Saudi Arabia speech, Trump says he’ll lift Syria sanctions and urges Iran to negotiate. [Online]. Politico. Last Updated: 13th May 2025.  [Accessed 20 May 2025].
• Trump, T, (2025), Address to Saudi-US Investment Forum, 13 May 2025, King Abdulaziz International Conference Centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
• Winter, O. (2025). A Pivotal Player: Jordan and the New Syria. Institute for National Security Studies.

The Mujahideen were Islamic guerrillas who resisted the Soviet forces between 1979 and 1989 in Afghanistan.[1] However, by 1992, the battle for Kabul broke out between the Mujahideen factions and militias, launching the country into a brutal civil war, leaving 250,000 dead by March 1993.[2] The ongoing chaos between mujahideen factions led to the birth of the Taliban in 1994.[3] The Taliban used the civil war to expand their territory by seizing control over cities in Afghanistan. By 1996, they seized Kabul, and their reign of terror began.[4] The Taliban government of 1996 to 2001 mirrored their predecessors in their suffocating policies towards women.

The Taliban came to power in September of 1996, and that very same month, they stripped girls of access to education, which left over 100,000 girls without this basic right.[5] By 1997, the Taliban ordered that no woman was to leave the house without being escorted by a male relative or face punishment alongside their family elders.[6] To erase women from public view entirely, households were required to paint over their windows to prevent female occupants from being seen by passersby.[7] Even the sound of their heels clicking against the pavement was deemed an offence punishable by beatings.[8] The 1997 policy of men and women being segregated in hospitals, as well as the firing of all female staff, devolved further in 1998, which forbade doctors from treating women in the absence of their father, brother or husband.[9] In June 1998, over 100 NGO-funded schools for girls were shut down.[10] By July 2000, women were banned from almost all sectors of the workforce, which hit the 30,000 widows created by the 20-year-long civil war especially hard.[11] Their manipulation of legislative authority cost Afghan women in all private and public sectors of their lives.

Education & Employment

The Taliban’s attempts between 1996 and 2001 to deprive Afghan women and girls of education and career opportunities were not enough to force them into submission, as their resilient characters prevailed, and they created their opportunities. Fahima was only 15 when the Taliban seized power. Fear became a familiar companion, tainting her transition into womanhood. Fahima was the first daughter born after 6 older brothers, all born and raised in Kabul. Education had always been a complicated subject for Fahima, not because she was not bright, but rather because she had never even seen a classroom. Her older brothers were studying to become lawyers, doctors and engineers, yet she was not afforded the same luxuries and was reduced merely to her gender. Taliban legislature meant she had to rely on her brothers to secretly teach her basic reading and writing within their home. However, Fahima’s informal education did not last long. Her brothers’ limited teaching ability, combined with the growing political instability of the country, proved to be too disruptive of a learning environment. Some of her friends attended secret sewing and reading classes organised by local older women in their homes, but fear of being discovered in Taliban home raids prevented Fahima from ever participating. Instead, she used the minimal sewing skills passed on to her by her mother and taught herself how to sew beautiful pieces for her family. At first, it was children’s trousers and dresses for her younger siblings. Needless to say, only her father or brothers could go to the fabric markets as the Taliban forbid women from such places, claiming it would lead to their moral corruption.[12] Fahima’s beautiful sewing became an outlet for her creativity and blossomed into a secret sewing career that operated from home. It was kept a secret from the Taliban who had also banned women from working.[13] Fahima remembers that her mother would pose as the seamstress, taking measurements and orders from unfamiliar customers while she hid out of sight. Fahima explained that this was to ensure her entire existence remained a secret from possible Taliban informants. Taliban members had a reputation for forcefully stealing girls away from their families after only catching a glimpse of them or finding out their home addresses. Fahima recalled that even street beggars would go door to door asking for donations and report back to Taliban men patrolling the neighbourhood. The beggars would expose houses where they saw young, potentially unmarried, girls for the Taliban to claim.  In return, the beggars were rewarded with food to ensure their survival. The small wage Fahima gained from sewing became a significant source of pride, she would use the money to pay for curtain and pillow materials, replacing the ones her father could no longer afford to.[14]

At a time when Afghanistan felt “frozen” in outdated practices imposed by the Taliban, girls like Fahima showed quiet resilience by daring to exist beyond the reach of the Taliban’s scrutinous gaze.[15] Fahima’s decision to support her family despite the twisted Taliban perspective on the role of women as mindless objects demonstrates female rejection of the Taliban on several levels, including ideological. Instead, she challenged Taliban gender norms designed to erase female agency by taking on the role of a provider within her household and became a pillar of support for her family. Her secret wage and informal education became subtle and personal acts of protest. Such acts reveal that even under Taliban absolutism, female agency persisted in the margins.

The barriers to girls’ education introduced by the Taliban in the 1990s persisted long after their rule, evolving into deeply embedded social attitudes and cultural norms. At just eight years old, Sharifa saw her hopes for education put on hold as the Taliban took power, forcing a long delay in her formal education. Her fiancé would constantly encourage her academic growth, but it was not until the age of 24, after the Taliban were removed from power, that she dared to sit in a classroom. She began with a temporary lesson at the 6^th grade level, which was designed for 11- and 12-year-olds. She caught the attention of her teachers and classmates with her rapid academic growth. Whilst only being enrolled at school for a year, she was encouraged to sit exams designed for the 9^th grade, allowing her to skip forward a few grades. During the same time, her 6-year-old son Baheer was in the 1st grade, accompanied by her then 4-year-old daughter Bahar. Despite being too young to be officially enrolled at school, Bahar would sit in her brother’s classroom as Sharifa had no other means of childcare while she was in class. Although the Taliban had officially been removed from power, their harmful ideologies continued to haunt those who remained in Afghanistan. As Sharifa recalled, a family acquaintance of hers complained to the headteacher at her school. Arguing that having a married student, such as Sharifa, would be an inappropriate influence on the other students. The end-of-year exams were just around the corner, but this did not prevent the headteacher from expelling Sharifa. This devastating news did not prevent Sharifa from being actively involved in her children’s education and using the literacy skills she gained during her short time at school to build on her knowledge.[16]

Sharifa’s determination to pursue education despite opposing attitudes whilst tackling motherhood illustrates that, although the Taliban temporarily barred Afghan women and girls from learning, their resolve and spirit refused to be broken. While female access to education did improve after the fall of the first Taliban regime in 2001, the damage left behind was not easily undone. The psychological and cultural scars remained deeply embedded in the collective mentality of Afghan society, which was still at the cost of women.

Disconnect Within Communities

The Taliban used fear as a tool to control and rearrange society to align with their repressive policies and ideologies. Fahima spoke with great fondness of her neighbourhood as a child.[17] She grew up in an Afghan society deeply rooted in hospitality. With weekly Wednesday gatherings organised by the mothers across the neighbourhood, while the men were at work. Every Friday was dedicated to hosting unannounced guests. All this changed when the Taliban took over in 1996. At first, it was the fear of Taliban interrogation that kept the girls, and their mothers confined to their homes.[18] Yet as their courage increased, their social circle narrowed. One at a time, Fahima’s young friends were thrust into adulthood. Ordinary practices and customs became defence strategies against Taliban tyranny.

The Taliban’s attempts to exclude women from the public sphere extended beyond policy and rhetoric, manifesting physically in architecture and civilian property. Taliban legislature required houses with female occupants to have their windows painted to conceal women in their homes from street view, further separating them from the public sphere.[19] However, it was many Afghan fathers like Fahima’s who took the initiative to increase the height of the walls surrounding their homes and gardens. These walls, once low enough to allow conversations between neighbours, now resembled the curtain walls of fortresses. Taliban laws aimed to censor women as inappropriate objects rejected from the public sphere, whilst the Afghans practised seclusion as a means of protecting their females from the intrusion of Taliban lust. Once again, Afghan women found refuge in the private sphere they had been banished to by the Taliban. Many families used the spatial restrictions to protect their daughters rather than to impose Taliban ideologies. For Fahima’s family, this transformation in bordering walls was provoked by the tragic Taliban kidnapping of young girls in the neighbourhood.[20]

A wave of sadness hit Fahima as she recalled the events which scarred her friend group. It was a sunny day when her friend Freshta, who was no older than 14, went out to her balcony to collect the laundry. Once, a simple chore had become a trap during Taliban rule. It was that doomed day that a Taliban member saw young Freshta, who was oblivious to his presence, out on her balcony. Infatuated by her beauty and justified by his audacity, the much older stranger stole Freshta from her parents by forcefully marrying her and moving hundreds of miles away. The kidnapping of Freshta sent a wave of panic among parents. Parents understood that the Taliban’s twisted perspective of women as objects to be owned and dominated by husbands meant that their unmarried daughters would never be safe[21]. Marriage also became a tool of protection against Taliban aggression. As fate would have it, a respectable marriage proposal from abroad came for Fahima when she was 20. Although arranged marriages are considered the norm in Afghan culture, Taliban pressure warped the ways it was conducted. In Fahima’s case, her groom was not allowed to fly into Afghanistan to attend their wedding celebrations as his beard length did not meet the ridiculous requirements the Taliban legislature demanded, which was punishable by imprisonment.[22] Furthermore, his residence abroad would have been interpreted as disrespect to Islam in the eyes of the Taliban also a punishable offence.[23]

Like Fahima, many girls in her community turned to marriage as a means of securing protection amidst the uncertainty and danger of Taliban rule. However, not all unions were based on compatibility or mutual affection. Fahima’s friend Latifa, for instance, was married at the age of 20 to a man 15 years her senior. Despite the significant age gap and lack of emotional connection, Latifa confided in Fahima that she felt relief and even a sense of gratitude not for the marriage itself, but for the security it provided.[24] In Latifa’s eyes, marriage, though imperfect, was a preferable alternative to the terrifying prospect of being forcibly taken by a Taliban member.[25]

By turning to an arranged marriage, Afghan women strategically navigated the patriarchal hierarchy that was originally designed to suppress them. In doing so, they secured a degree of social protection and stability, using the institution of marriage to escape the far more coercive and dangerous prospect of being forcibly claimed by a Taliban member. While marriage granted young girls a form of security under Taliban rule, it also introduced new fractures within their communities, as these unions, shaped by urgency, led to abrupt transitions into womanhood.

For younger girls like Sharifa, the abrupt transition into adulthood under Taliban rule felt like a profound “betrayal” by society.[26] At just 14, Sharifa was engaged, and by 16, she was married.[27] Her engagement came during a period of rising Taliban abductions, which fuelled widespread anxiety among Afghan parents. In the year 2000, following the death of her father, Sharifa became especially vulnerable.[28] In a political climate that treated women as property to be owned, protected, or exchanged, she internalized the belief that she had become a “burden” to her recently widowed mother; unprotected and exposed to Taliban exploitation.[29] With no end to Taliban rule in sight, her family arranged her engagement in the spring of 2000 to a well-respected family friend. Though it was meant as a protective measure, Sharifa became the first and only girl in generations of her family to be engaged at such a young age. Unlike Latifa, who found some relief in the security of marriage, Sharifa felt increasing resentment towards the Taliban and their ideologies. She recalled feeling that her childhood had been sacrificed to the greed and violence of the Taliban and that at such a vulnerable age, her agency was traded for survival.

Sharifa’s arranged marriage at such a young age reveals how the Taliban’s regime not only enforced systemic oppression but also reshaped familial dynamics and accelerated the erasure of girlhood. Marriage, traditionally viewed as a rite of passage into adulthood, was in some cases weaponised as a tool of survival, rushing girls into roles they were emotionally and psychologically unprepared for and fracturing communities and families. Her experience reflects how the Taliban’s oppressive regime penetrates the most intimate aspects of life, leaving generational impacts on how gender, safety, and sacrifice are understood within affected communities.

Personal Identity & Reflections

For Fahima, the chadari represented more than a restrictive garment, it became a source of deep “frustration”, both practically and symbolically.[30] She perceived it as a tool used by the Taliban to suppress women’s individuality and silence their desire for self-expression. In her view, the chadari was not simply about modesty, but a visual manifestation of the regime’s attempt to strip women of identity to assert Taliban authority. The weight of this imposed invisibility was emotionally suffocating. For Fahima and her close friends, this frustration often culminated in moments of collective despair. Sitting together in silence, crying not just for themselves, but for the loss of their futures and their country.[31]

Sharifa’s experience with the chadari reveals the psychological burden it imposed on even the youngest girls. At only 13, she was urged by her mother to begin wearing it, not out of religious conviction, but out of fear. Her mother explained that Sharifa had “grown tall enough” to be seen as a woman by the Taliban, a dangerous threshold under their rule.[32] Though still a child, Sharifa was forced to adopt a garment meant for adult women, one that she felt did not belong to her at that age. She recalled thinking she was still a “small,” girl, and emotionally unready for the weight of adult expectations being forced upon her.[33] Wearing the chadari also deterred her from leaving the house; the thought of conforming to Taliban dress codes every time she stepped outside became yet another barrier to freedom.[34]

The chadari, in both testimonies, emerges not as a neutral cultural symbol but as a calculated tool of gendered repression. Weaponised by the Taliban to visually and psychologically reinforce women's exclusion from public life. Their stories challenge simplistic cultural readings of the chadari by revealing how, under coercive regimes, clothing becomes an extension of political domination. Throughout the interviews, both Fahima and Sharifa articulated that in Afghanistan, girls were positioned on the frontlines of political, economic, and social oppression. Their lived experiences during the rearrangement of the public and private spheres reveal how young girls became the most vulnerable targets of state-sanctioned patriarchy. Yet this gendered marginalisation imposed by the Taliban was met with forms of quiet but powerful female resistance.

References

EUAA, “7.1.2. Past Conflicts (1979-2001),” European Union Agency for Asylum, November 2021"

United States Department of State, “U.S. Department of State Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 2001 - Afghanistan | Refworld,” Refworld (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, October 26, 2001),

Fahima Yaree, “Female Experience During the First Wave of Taliban Rule”, Interviewed by Author, London, March 11, 2025.

United States Department of State, “U.S. Department of State Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 2001 – Afghanistan” Refworld (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, October 26, 2001).

Yaree, Interviewed by Author, London, March 11, 2025.

Sharifa Omari, “Female Experience During the First Wave of Taliban Rule”, Interview by Author, Lille, March 18, 2025.

Yaree, Interviewed by Author, London, March 11, 2025.

United States Department of State, “U.S. Department of State Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 2001 - Afghanistan | Refworld,” Refworld (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, October 26, 2001).

Yaree, Interview by Author London, March 11, 2025.

BBC, “Who Are the Taliban?” BBC News, August 12, 2022,

Yaree, Interviewed by Author, London, March 11, 2025.

Omari, Interview by Author, Lille, March 18, 2025.

Yaree, Interviewed by Author, London, March 11, 2025.

Omari, Interview by Author, Lille, March 18, 2025.