Detained Afghan Girl Says She Disguised Herself To Support Family
The release of a video showing the forced confession of a girl detained by the Taliban while dressed as a boy has drawn widespread attention on social media.
The release of a video showing the forced confession of a girl detained by the Taliban while dressed as a boy has drawn widespread attention on social media.
In the video, the girl says she was compelled to work in order to protect and support her sisters.
She says she worked for three years in a café, initially earning 7,000 afghanis per month and later 10,000 afghanis, before being detained by the Taliban.
The video of the confession, recorded while the girl was in Taliban custody, has circulated widely online. In the footage, the girl says she dressed as a boy out of necessity so she could work and provide for her family.
The exact time and location of the recording remain unclear. Spokespersons for the Taliban’s Interior Ministry and the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice did not respond to Afghanistan International’s questions about the reason for her detention or her current situation.
In the video, a man’s voice can be heard questioning the girl about her identity, place of residence and family background.
“Are you a boy or a girl?” the man asks.
The detainee confirms she is female and says she wore boys’ clothing out of necessity because she is responsible for supporting her family.
The man conducting the interrogation asks about her workplace, how long she had worked there, her employer and her salary. She replies that she has worked in a café for three years, earning 7,000 afghanis in the first years and 10,000 afghanis for the past eight months to a year.
After the Taliban entered Kabul in August 2021, women’s right to work came under widespread threat. Female government employees, with the exception of those in the health sector and parts of education, were sent home.
The Taliban also restricted women’s employment in private institutions and international organisations and closed hundreds of women’s beauty salons, decisions that have jeopardised the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Afghan families.
The Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has also carried out a broad campaign of detaining young women from streets and markets in various cities.
The phenomenon of girls dressing as boys was also common during the Taliban’s first period of rule in Afghanistan. Some girls changed their appearance to avoid restrictions so they could attend school, work and participate in society.
Afghan filmmaker Siddiq Barmak later portrayed this reality in the film Osama, which tells the story of a girl forced to disguise herself as a boy during the Taliban’s first government.
The film, released in 2003, depicts the life of a girl compelled to adopt a male identity in order to survive socially under Taliban rule.
Barmak described the film as “a real tragedy from a time when no one had the right to decide for themselves.”
In 2004, Osama won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
