Afghanistan dispatch: ‘female lawyers are at risk and there is a possibility of losing them’ Dispatches
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Afghanistan dispatch: ‘female lawyers are at risk and there is a possibility of losing them’

Afghan law students and young lawyers in Afghanistan have been reporting on the ground since the Taliban took Kabul in August 2021. Here, a women lawyer in Kabul speaks on the plight of female lawyers still in the country. For privacy and security reasons, we are withholding our correspondent’s name. The text (translated from the original Persian) has only been lightly edited to respect the author’s voice.

My name is [redacted], a female defense lawyer in Afghanistan, and I would like to give you a detailed explanation about the crisis of defense lawyers and the problems that have plagued women lawyers who are here. Since the Taliban took over the power of the government, all the work of female defense lawyers has become very difficult. They spend their days in their homes as alternatives to imprisonment or house arrest. My colleagues and I are facing thousands of threats. The Taliban destroy women as defenders of human rights and this is extremely horrible. Our voices are suffocated in our throats and no one in this world hears our voices. We are at home and we are changing our homes due to security threats. The life and limb of the defender is in danger. A couple of weeks ago I went to court twice and I gave free legal advice to women in harm’s ways and I helped them in the advancement of their files. I was threatened, but I still want to help.

The economy of female lawyers has collapsed. Poverty and deprivation are rampant.  Poverty has increased to the extreme for women lawyers. One day I had a toothache and I did not have money to go to the dentist, and my colleague’s child was sick and she did not have money to go to the doctor. Female lawyers want to study again and try to continue their education, but because that field is not favorable for them either under the Taliban they can’t even study.

The Taliban took over the independent bar association and that became a part of the Ministry of Justice, and now women lawyers are not allowed inside the Ministry. Only men are allowed. Women do not even have the right to retake the exams to be lawyers. They don’t test women, and they don’t allow them to work, so female lawyers are at risk and there is a possibility of losing them. Our mouths have been hit and our voices are suffocated in our throats and our mouths are closed and no one is willing to help us and no one hears our voices and there is the possibility of losing female lawyers in the future. If this occurs, a great deal will be lost and this loss will reach the whole world, because if these lawyers were refugees in other countries they could do a great service for those countries, but because they are in Afghanistan they will be lost. 

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