CNN — When Zahra thinks again to her life earlier than the summer time of 2021, it looks like one other actuality. As a scholar in Afghanistan, she had “a lot of buddies.” “We had been blissful collectively,” she recalled. “We had been finding out, generally we had been gathering collectively … we had been using bikes.” Zahra, 20, doesn’t experience bikes anymore. Or go to highschool, or stroll outdoors with out masking her face, or see buddies who’ve fled the nation. All she will be able to do, she says, is sit at house and fear a few future that has unraveled earlier than her eyes. “Once I stand in entrance of the mirror, after I have a look at myself, I simply see a unique Zahra from two years in the past,” she mentioned. “I really feel unhappy for my previous.” CNN speaks to Afghan ladies about life after two years of Taliban rule Tuesday marks the two-year anniversary of Kabul falling to the Taliban, which seized management of Afghanistan amid the USA’ chaotic, controversial withdrawal from the nation after almost 20 years of preventing. The Taliban, which isn’t acknowledged by most nations all over the world, has declared Tuesday a nationwide vacation. The day is “filled with honor and delight for Afghans,” Taliban deputy spokesperson Bilal Karimi instructed CNN. “Afghanistan was free of occupation, Afghans had been in a position to regain their nation, freedom, authorities and can. The one strategy to clear up the issue is knowing and dialogue, stress and drive usually are not logical,” he added. However celebrating is the very last thing many Afghan ladies like Zahra – who CNN is figuring out by her first identify just for security causes – wish to do, as life underneath Taliban rule turns into more and more repressive and brutal. And, activists warn, issues might solely worsen because the world appears away, fatigued with Afghanistan’s decades-long wars and too preoccupied with their very own home points. All of the whereas, dwindling international support means tens of millions of Afghans are battling drought, starvation, and sickness in a disaster that United Nations’ human rights specialists mentioned this week is rising worse. “There isn’t a such factor as ladies’s freedom anymore,” mentioned Mahbouba Seraj, an Afghan ladies’s rights activist and 2023 Nobel Peace Prize nominee. “The ladies in Afghanistan are being slowly erased from society, from life, from all the pieces – their opinions, their voices, what they assume, the place they’re.” ‘They can not go to highschool? Why?’: Afghan lady outraged over Taliban’s college suspension for girls When the Taliban, a radical Islamist group that had beforehand dominated Afghanistan within the 1990s, took energy in 2021, it initially introduced itself as a extra average model of its former self, even promising that ladies can be allowed to proceed their schooling as much as college. Nevertheless it has since cracked down as a substitute, closing secondary colleges for ladies; banning ladies from attending college and dealing at NGOs, together with the United Nations; proscribing their journey with no male chaperone; and banning them from public areas comparable to parks and gymnasiums. Ladies can now not work in most sectors – and had been dealt yet one more blow final month when the Taliban closed all magnificence salons throughout the nation. The trade had employed roughly 60,000 ladies, a lot of them the only breadwinners for his or her family, spelling extra bother for households already struggling to get by. For younger ladies like Zahra, the abrupt upending of every day life feels notably devastating as they arrive of age and develop goals for his or her future. She enjoys artwork, and had wished to be a designer or to begin her personal enterprise – none of which feels doable in Afghanistan anymore. “I’m 20 years outdated, and it’s time for me to check, to get educated,” she mentioned. “However I’m not allowed. I’m simply in my home. I’m simply worrying about my future, my sisters, and I’m worrying about the way forward for all ladies of Afghanistan.” Unable to go outdoors a lot, she tries to occupy her time at house by portray, studying books, and taking no matter on-line courses can be found. Nevertheless it feels stifling, like being in jail, she says. “I can’t focus as a result of I see the state of affairs, my sister is sitting at house, all the ladies are sitting of their home. They can not do something.” It additionally has taken a extreme psychological well being toll, with widespread stories of melancholy and suicide, particularly amongst teenage ladies who’ve been prevented from pursuing an schooling, based on a UN report final month, compiled after a week-long go to to Afghanistan. Nearly 8% of individuals surveyed knew a lady or lady who had tried suicide, the report mentioned. Restrictions and financial hardship have additionally resulted in an increase in home violence and the pressured marriage of ladies, it mentioned. The Taliban has repeatedly claimed that ladies are allowed to work in sure sectors so long as it follows “Islamic values.” Zabiullah Mujahid, one other Taliban spokesperson, acknowledged there was nonetheless a “drawback concerning the ladies’ schooling,” claiming the group wished to “pave the bottom for Islamic guidelines and rules” and set up a “secure atmosphere for his or her schooling.” He additionally claimed “ladies are actively working in well being, schooling, police departments, passport workplaces, airports and so forth.” However nonprofit organizations and specialists say that’s removed from the reality, and the gaping gap is especially evident within the well being care sector. Below the Taliban’s guidelines, ladies can solely obtain well being care from different ladies – however the ban on ladies’s increased schooling means all feminine medical college students haven’t been in a position to end their research and graduate, making a scarcity of much-needed feminine medical doctors, midwives and nurses. “(The Taliban) appear completely comfy with the concept that ladies and ladies are nearly actually already dying due to a scarcity of well being care professionals, due to their insurance policies,” warned Heather Barr, affiliation director of the ladies’s rights division at Human Rights Watch. ‘I’ve performed nothing incorrect… I solely need my proper to schooling,’ pleads Afghan woman The worldwide group has extensively condemned the Taliban’s remedy of women and girls, with the UN’s human rights physique urging the group this week to introduce reforms and respect ladies’s freedoms. However these messages have performed little to drive change, and international consideration has largely pale – leaving many Afghans feeling indignant and deserted by the world. “The younger folks of Afghanistan are screaming their lungs out, attempting to convey the world’s consideration to themselves and to the state of affairs of the battle, of the girl in Afghanistan,” mentioned Seraj, the ladies’s rights activist. Zahra mentioned she puzzled why different nations appeared content material to look away. “They’re comfy – their youngsters, their daughters, their sisters are going to highschool,” she mentioned. “However … there are women and girls on this nook of the world, they’re simply ignored by the world, and so they can’t do something.” After the Taliban takeover, the US and its allies froze about $7 billion of the nation’s international reserves and reduce off worldwide funding. The transfer crippled an financial system already closely depending on support, with tens of millions of Afghans out of labor, authorities staff going with out pay, and the worth of meals and drugs skyrocketing. Final 12 months, the US arrange an financial help fund of $3.5 billion with the frozen belongings – however officers mentioned they gained’t launch the cash imminently to an establishment in Afghanistan, as a substitute going by means of an out of doors physique, impartial of the Taliban and the nation’s central financial institution. Humanitarian support has dried up much more in latest months after the Taliban’s ban on ladies working at NGOs. Quite a few organizations, together with the UN, needed to droop essential applications or operations within the nation. All of the whereas, activists concern the Taliban could also be regularly normalized on the world stage – even when it isn’t widely known as a reputable authorities and doesn’t management Afghanistan’s UN seat. “They’re posing in pictures with smiling diplomats, they’re getting on personal jets to fly off to essential high-level conferences the place folks roll out crimson carpets for them,” mentioned Barr. “They’re being permitted to take management of embassies in a rising variety of nations. So I feel from their perspective, it’s going fairly effectively.” The dire state of affairs means greater than 1.6 million Afghans have fled the nation since 2021, based on the UN. Even these refugees face a way forward for uncertainty, many nonetheless ready to be admitted to the US and different Western nations, whereas some have been ready so lengthy they had been forcibly deported again to Afghanistan and had to enter…