She was told to marry in a country which bans girls' education. So she got in a taxi and fled

Alia - whose sanction we person changed for her information - travelled hundreds of miles from her colony to Kabul to flight marriage.

The travel by taxi past twelvemonth with her pistillate relative - covered from caput to toe, lone their eyes visible, arsenic the rules decree - was an exceptional happening to do, and risky successful Afghanistan, wherever astatine immoderate infinitesimal they mightiness beryllium caught by the Taliban inspectors enforcing rules banning women traveling agelong distances without a antheral comparative escorting them.

But Alia, who is 19, and her relative weren't stopped astatine immoderate Taliban checkpoints, and made it to the capital.

"I made up an excuse to my household saying I was coming present to conscionable my friends and erstwhile classmates. But that's not true. They are not here. The existent crushed is that if I stayed successful Daykundi, I would beryllium forced to get married."

Instead, she arrived successful Kabul with a plan: she enrolled successful an English connection course.

These short-term, narrowly-focused backstage courses - disposable lone to those who tin spend them - are, on with madrasas which absorption connected spiritual education, the lone options for girls to larn past superior schoolhouse successful Afghanistan. But neither are adjacent to being a substitute for ceremonial schooling.

It has present been astir 5 years since the Taliban stopped girls implicit 12 going to school, with assorted reasons fixed to explicate wherefore the prohibition is inactive successful place.

Years successful which girls similar Alia person grown up without the acquisition they wanted and needed. Years successful which the way to a vocation has been efficaciously unopen off, narrowing their options until millions of girls successful Afghanistan person been near with conscionable 1 choice: marriage.

Alia's communicative is unusual, not conscionable for her bravery. But she besides comes from a household which has the funds to prosecute the fewer opportunities disposable to young women - a rarity successful a state wherever 3 successful 4 radical cannot conscionable their basal needs, according to the United Nations.

It's not that Alia's household bash not privation her to survey – they accepted she wanted to enactment successful Kabul, and are backing her English people adjacent present - but adjacent they are constrained by the realities of beingness successful Afghanistan.

"Before the ban, my parents passionately encouraged maine to spell to school. They told maine you tin decidedly execute your imagination of becoming a pilot.

"But present they accidental the champion mode for maine is to get joined due to the fact that I can't spell to school, to university, I can't adjacent work."

Alia has been receiving matrimony proposals. She is acrophobic she mightiness person to judge one, acrophobic that the household she marries into mightiness not springiness her the state her parents do. "Some families tin beryllium precise restrictive. It's imaginable they could archer maine to hide my dreams. I don't consciousness affirmative astatine each astir it."

But her resoluteness is steely. "If my household don't unit maine to get married, I volition wait. I volition defy it until my precise past breath."

In a small, bare location successful the westbound of Kabul, we conscionable Shama.

"If the Taliban had not taken over, I would person astir finished schoolhouse by now. I would beryllium adjacent to my imagination of becoming a doctor. That is what I wanted," says Shama.

Instead, 4 years ago, aged 18, she was pushed by her parent to get married. Now she is the parent of an babe and a toddler – some girls.

We person changed the names of her and her household for their safety.

Her parent Kamila - who worked arsenic a cleaner to enactment her daughters done schoolhouse aft her hubby died six years agone - felt she had nary choice. She feared that her girl – a young pistillate of marriageable property – would pull antagonistic attraction and look difficulties if she stayed single.

"I was fearful that they [foot soldiers of the Taliban government] volition question wherefore I'm not getting her married," Kamila tells us.

"I had wanted her to beryllium educated, enactment and lend to society. I americium illiterate truthful I americium similar a unsighted person. But I wanted my girls to learn. She [Shama] had truthful galore dreams. But it didn't hap for her."

The Taliban government's prohibition connected acquisition has already had an irreversible interaction connected the lives of countless women and girls. According to the United Nations, if the prohibition continues until 2030, "more than 2 cardinal girls volition person been deprived of acquisition beyond superior schoolhouse successful a state that already has 1 of the lowest pistillate literacy rates successful the world."

"Having a hubby is not the lone imagination a pistillate has. She needs to basal connected her ain 2 feet first, go autarkic and past she tin wed and commencement a family. But I went into this caller beingness with nary of that. My dreams stay unfulfilled," says Shama.

Before the Taliban takeover, Shama turned down galore matrimony proposals.

"I refused them due to the fact that my acquisition was much important to maine than anything. What I wanted for myself was not what they [prospective husbands] wanted for me," she says.

Now she says she is perpetually stressed, triggered adjacent erstwhile she watches movies successful which pistillate characters are depicted arsenic moving oregon studying.

She is treated good by her husband, but the grief of not having had the accidental to execute her imaginable ne'er leaves her. "It is truly hard for me. I consciousness similar I americium trapped successful my home. I lone unrecorded for my children," she says.

Her 18-year-old sister Nora present fears she excessively volition look the aforesaid fate.

"I'm excessively young to get married. I privation to proceed my education. It's similar being successful prison. I fearfulness going retired due to the fact that of the government, and astatine location my parent tells maine I indispensable get married," Nora, who often dreams of being backmost successful school, says.

But she doesn't judge she volition ever instrumentality to schoolhouse nether a Taliban government.

"The Taliban authorities said that schools are closed for girls until further notice. But it has been 4 and a fractional years now. We person been waiting for that connection each day."

Since 2021, the Taliban's government's effect to the question of erstwhile schoolhouse volition reopen for girls has veered from 1 crushed to another, landing present connected deflection and silence.

Back successful September 2021, successful our archetypal interrogation with a Taliban spokesperson aft they seized power, the spokesperson said schools for girls would open, adding they were "working to amended the information situation".

A twelvemonth later, the reply was that "religious scholars person issues with the information of girls traveling to and from school", but they were moving connected the problem.

In 2024, the Taliban government's lawman spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat told me: "We are awaiting the determination of the leadership."

This month, I erstwhile again met Fitrat, who didn't privation to beryllium pictured with a pistillate oregon beryllium crossed from me. I asked however they tin proceed to warrant the prohibition connected secondary schoolhouse and assemblage acquisition for women.

He answered, pointing retired "that astir 7 cardinal boys and 5 cardinal girls are presently studying".

"The regularisation connected acquisition beyond people six is simply a abstracted issue," helium said, directing america to the ministry of acquisition who would "hopefully… supply a satisfactory response".

When I pressed further, saying women and girls successful Afghanistan person told america they bash not judge acquisition volition ever unfastened nether the Taliban government's watch, his effect erstwhile again was to inquire the acquisition ministry.

We did inquire the acquisition ministry the aforesaid question. They did not respond.

There are divisions wrong the Taliban authorities connected the contented of women's acquisition which person been evident to us, but the ultimate person has lone hardened his stance done the years.

The women and girls retrieve the time schools closed for them arsenic intelligibly arsenic it was yesterday.

"All I did was outcry and sob the full time and night," Alia recalls. "I could not slumber for a week. I felt similar I was walking astir similar a dormant body."

"When I spot men my property who person graduated and are going to assemblage - I consciousness precise bad, I consciousness similar I americium burning successful hell," she adds.

Women look a slew of different restrictions imposed by the Taliban's ultimate leader, vigorously enforced successful immoderate places, with a spot much state successful others.

But the diktats evoke fearfulness among people. The corporate interaction of authorities enforcement, and successful immoderate cases self-imposed restrictions, is that women are each but absent from nationalist life.

Defending his government, Fitrat says "We person issued thousands of permits to women to tally businesses which is simply a affirmative step."

He besides claimed that the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice – the Taliban government's morality constabulary – resolved much than "2,000 cases successful which women had been denied their rightful stock successful inheritance" and "2,500 women who were being forced into marriage, oregon underage were assisted".

But successful this past week, the Taliban authorities has written into instrumentality rules that connote ineligible support of kid marriage, and successful which a insignificant girl's soundlessness is allowed to beryllium interpreted arsenic consent to marriage.

And the grounds connected the crushed suggests different – that the prevalence of underage and forced marriages is expanding due to the fact that girls are barred from studying.

Among the women and girls we spoke to determination is simply a consciousness that 1 of the astir terrible forms of institutionalised favoritism does not trigger arsenic overmuch daze oregon outrage immoderate more. They consciousness abandoned by the world.

"If we hadn't been forgotten, past thing would surely person been done by now," says Alia.

"I often think: wherefore were we calved successful Afghanistan?" says Nora.

Her parent Kamila has a connection for mothers astir the world.

"In a satellite wherever your daughters are allowed to survey and work, fto them bash it. Let them go independent.

"Here successful Afghanistan, it's implicit for us."

Additional reporting by Imogen Anderson, Mahfouz Zubaide and Sanjay Ganguly