Exiled in Fear: Living Under Terror That Never Becomes Ordinary

The “16 Days of Activism” campaign is a global movement aimed at raising awareness and ending gender-based violence against women and girls. Held annually from November 25 (International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women) to December 10 (Human Rights Day), the campaign brings together countries, civil society organizations, and activists. This year’s theme, “United to End Digital Violence Against All Women and Girls,” emphasizes the urgent need to combat online harassment and discrimination.

The Rights Monitor Media will cover the campaign by sharing news, reports, personal stories, and reflections from Afghan women and girls, highlighting their experiences with violence and restrictions.

Samira

My dearest diary,
Hello.

I write to you from a place that is not far from home, yet painfully distant from everything I once imagined for myself. I have been pushed into exile without ever crossing a border—an exile measured not in physical distance, but in the vast space now separating me from my dreams, my goals, and the future that was silently taken from me.

You know, I was exiled. Not to a foreign land, but into a vague, dusty, suffocating world—where sadness feels like the only permissible emotion left to express.

I have written to you so much about the Taliban, the suffocating silence, the morality enforcement, and the hardships that govern my days, that perhaps these words have begun to sound like clichés. But what can I do? This reality refuses to become ordinary to me. I cannot grow used to terror. I cannot sleep peacefully, eat without a lump tightening in my throat, or cast my dreams—one by one—into a river of surrender and pretend that survival comes without mourning what was lost.

Yesterday, I was going to the market. As I crossed Shahr-e-Now Square, I suddenly found myself beside one of the morality officers, dressed in a white cloak. I knew that if he spotted me wearing my coat, he might drag me away—or force me to stand for hours, under the harsh glare of the sun. Perhaps you will think this makes me afraid, or weak. But it does not matter. I was afraid. And so I ran. I ran until I disappeared from his sight.

With a trembling heart, I hid myself in a quiet corner. After finishing my shopping, I made my way home again through narrow alleys and winding backstreets, choosing invisibility over humiliation.

Perhaps a part of me fears the Talib and the brutality of their rule. Yet what wounds me deeper than fear itself is the crushing humiliation—the kind that strikes dignity long before it reaches the body. I cannot bear to watch my worth being trampled by those who do not even understand the value of what they destroy. I would rather run endlessly than accept a life constructed on enforced shame.

Now, even stepping outside my own house has become its own battle. The moment I reach for the door, a strange wave of anxiety wraps around my legs, shaking them beneath me. Some may say it is easier to simply veil myself in a prayer cover. But I cannot, and I will not. The air in Herat is intensely hot, and I can barely endure the clothes on my own skin—how could I layer another over my head? Am I meant to become the instrument of my own suffering?

Even if the heat were not the burden, I know this truth: obeying the words of the oppressor today becomes permission for a harsher oppression tomorrow.

What I have told you might sound like the most ordinary incident in the life of a woman here. But I write it—so that years from now, when I return to these pages, I remember that nothing was ever ordinary. That surrender would have meant death. That survival itself was resistance. And I will smile with quiet pride, knowing that staying human, afraid, and wounded was not weakness—it was the proof that I never adjusted to terror, never accepted it as normal, and never let fear erase my voice.