On the run from Afghanistan: “Women are in prison, while criminals are free”

When Afghanistan fell into the hands of the Taliban, hundreds of female judges went into hiding. The Taliban had opened prisons across the country, freeing the same men the judges had once jailed.

Twenty-six of those women have now fled to Greece. For their safety, their names have been changed.

Around midnight the phone rang. With the pickup location confirmed, it was time to leave.

Dressed in a full-length black chador, Judge Sana took to the street, with her two small children by her side. Each of them carried a single bag, filled with two pairs of clothes, passport, telephone, cash and all the food they could bring for the trip.

“When we left we didn’t know where we were going,” recalled Sana. “We were told there would be safety risks along the way, but we accepted them all because we knew this was the only way out.”

A car came to take her and her children. As she ascended, Sana looked back to the city where she was born, raised and started her family. The fact that they had survived was now in the hands of strangers coordinating an evacuation effort. He had no idea where they were going, but he knew they couldn’t stay.

“It was the worst time of my life when I watched my kids walk away,” she said. “I was so desperate. I was wondering if I would ever get them out of Afghanistan alive.”

For the past three months, Sana said, she has been hunted down by the same men she sent to prison for violent crimes against women. The Taliban opened prisons as they advanced across the country, releasing thousands of criminals to take revenge on those who incarcerated them.

“I worked in a court that dealt with many different crimes, including murder, suicide, rape and other complex crimes. The punishments I inflicted were long and severe,” Sana said.

“But after they were all released, each of them told us: ‘We will kill you if we find you.'”

A recent BBC investigation found that more than 220 female judges were living in hiding because they feared retaliation under Taliban rule. Speaking from secret locations within Afghanistan, many of those women said they received death threats on a daily basis.

In response to the allegations, Taliban spokesperson Bilal Karimi secretary told the BBC: “Female judges should live like any other family without fear. No one should threaten them. Our special military units are obliged to investigate such complaints and take action in case of is a violation ”.

Karimi also repeated the Taliban’s pledge of a “general amnesty” for all former government employees across Afghanistan.

But Sana described the past few months as a “living nightmare”.

“We changed positions every two or three days, moving from the road to the shelters and hotels,” he said.

“We couldn’t go back. Our own house had already been ransacked.”

After leaving the assembly point, Sana and her family continued the next leg of their overland journey. They traveled across the desert for more than 10 hours, he said, never sleeping. Every half hour or so, they arrived at a Taliban checkpoint where gunmen inspected travelers.

Sana cradled her youngest child in her arms all the way, she said. He didn’t think they would get out alive.

“If they had known I was a judge, they would have killed us immediately,” he said, bursting into tears. Sana had often ruled over cases where women had killed themselves as a result of their husbands’ abuse.

“I always thought, at what point does a woman choose death? But when I started to lose hope, I got to this point. I was ready to kill myself.”

After safely crossing the desert, Sana and her children spent more than a week in a shelter, until they were eventually taken to an airstrip.

As the plane took off, the entire cabin burst into tears, he said. They were out.

After arriving in Athens, all 26 judges and their family members were tested for Covid-19 before being dropped off in various apartment buildings around the city. Under a temporary visa regime, the Greek authorities, in collaboration with various charities, guaranteed the judges room and board for 14 days.

What would happen after the two weeks were up was not known. The judges were advised to start seeking asylum in a third country.

Among those who sought refuge in the UK was Asma. With over 25 years of experience as a judge in Afghanistan, it wasn’t the first time he fled the Taliban.

In 1996, when the group seized power from the retreating Soviet army, Asma and her family fled across the border out of Afghanistan.

“This is the second time we have seen a Taliban takeover. I was a judge when they first came to power,” Asma said.

“Even then, female judges were the first to be expelled from society.”

With the arrival of US and NATO troops in 2001, Asma returned home and resumed working as a judge. Until, two months ago, history began to repeat itself.

Sana, too, had already witnessed the rise of the Taliban. She had just graduated from law school when they came to power in the 1990s. For five years, she was forced to stay home and give up her job, she said.

“Becoming a female judge in itself is a huge struggle,” she said. “First she has to convince her own family to let her study. Then, even when she goes to college and gets a job, she still has to prove herself at every step.

“But in Afghanistan, female judges are needed to understand the pain women feel. Just as a doctor is needed to treat the sick, a female judge understands the difficulties women face and can help resolve inequality.

“For women, there is shame associated with even just reporting a crime. But families are more likely to support their female relatives if a female judge is present.”

Walking on the walls of her small temporary apartment in Greece, Sana scrolled to her phone. She pointed to a photo of her old family home, a property she proudly said was hers by law, not her husband’s.

After their evacuation, the house was commandeered by a high-ranking member of the Taliban, he said. He lives in his house, drives his car, owns all his things.

For judges who now live as part of the diaspora, the news from home is rarely positive. In one of their many Whatsapp groups, a montage of 28 profile pictures is shared. Each face, a judge said, was a former male prosecutor allegedly murdered in the past 48 hours by criminals released from prison.

Of all the female judges who arrived in Greece, it was the youngest who looked the most devastated by what they had to leave behind.

Nargis, a young judge, served less than five years in a provincial family court before the Taliban took power. His entire university and working career took place under a US-backed Afghan government.

“As long as the Taliban are in power, it will be impossible for women to progress and keep everything they have achieved in the past 20 years,” Nargis said.

Among the senior judges, those who had previously witnessed not only the rise but also the fall of the Taliban, there was more hope.

“The women of Afghanistan are not the women of 20 years ago,” Asma said. “Look at those women who protested the first days of the arrival of the Taliban, demanding their rights, asking for an education.

“Even reaching this point was not easy. But today every daughter of our country is standing.”

Sana also found her hope. The laws she and her fellow judges helped create cannot simply be wiped out of history, she said. They can be ignored by the Taliban but they cannot be canceled. They are searchable, shareable: a record of what has been achieved.

You mentioned the constitution. Article 22: All citizens of Afghanistan, men and women, have equal rights. Article 43: Education is a right of all citizens of Afghanistan. Article 48: Work is a right of every Afghan.

Sana had contributed to the drafting of the Act on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, which was converted into law in 2009 and committed 22 acts of abuse of women crimes, including rape, beatings, forced marriages, impediment of women to acquire property and prohibit a woman or girl from going to school or work.

For now, the Taliban have decreed that all female workers and students must stay home from school or work until all workplaces and learning environments are deemed “safe”. They said it’s a temporary measure, but they have yet to set a timeline for when the situation will change.

Asked whether women will hold prominent positions, such as judge or minister, in the future, Karimi told the BBC she could not comment, because “working conditions and opportunities for women” were “still under discussion”.

From her new temporary refuge in Greece, Sana sees a painful injustice at home.

“Right now, the women are locked in their homes and the criminals I put away are free,” she said.

He promised that he will continue to fight that injustice, even from abroad, and “support every Afghan woman”.

“Afghanistan does not belong to the Taliban or to any specific group,” he said. “It belongs to all Afghans.”

Photographs by Derrick Evans.