“In the college in Kabul, I wasn’t thinking about what my teacher was teaching; I was thinking all the time if the Taliban will come and kill us.”
After waging a 20-year insurgency, Islamic extremists in Afghanistan returned to power in 2020 and have only boosted their presence since. The Taliban, one of many Afghan groups designated by the U.S. government as terrorists and known for their severe interpretation and execution of Islamic laws, orchestrated the takeover quickly. The coup occurred on the heels of the Biden administration’s September 2020 implementation of a Trump-negotiated withdrawal order from March of that year.
The coup had long been brewing. It was in the 1990s when the Taliban first overthrew Afghanistan’s government, putting in place harsh laws that especially targeted women’s rights, among other minorities. The Taliban has long drawn international condemnation for their human rights violations, essentially restricting women from living freely by prohibiting them from receiving an education, traveling alone and being loud in public spaces. In public, women under Taliban rule must also always wear a burqa — a full-body outer garment with only a mesh screen for the wearer to see through. These rules stem from the Taliban’s extremist interpretation of the Quran, significantly straying from the practices of most Muslims.
After the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, U.S. forces took control of the nation, attempting to establish a democratic government with improved security, new infrastructure and women’s rights. However, instability and insurgent resistance persisted. By the late 2010s, the Taliban had regained significant territory, continuously carrying out violent attacks and enforcing oppressive rules on the people living there. Following the U.S.’ withdrawal in 2021, the Taliban officially reclaimed authority and resurrected their tyrannical regime.
Zainab Mazari, a college student from Kabul, Afghanistan, lived part of her life amidst this volatile conflict. Her world became increasingly uncertain as the Taliban retook control in recent years, pushing her to seek a way out of the country and build a new future beyond the borders.
Zainab was born in Kashan, Iran, on July 22, 2000. She has two younger brothers and was raised by parents who, despite also being born in Iran, were not federally recognized as Iranian citizens because of their Afghan ethnicity.
Throughout her childhood, Zainab embraced her athleticism. She participated in various school-wide sports competitions until she turned 13, when her family forced her to stop. It was common for Iranian families to prohibit their daughters from playing sports or participating in outdoor activities when they become teenagers, following traditional Muslim conservative beliefs. Zainab switched hobbies and began reading books instead of playing sports.
After graduating from Reyhana Al-Nabi High School in Kashan, Zainab sought higher education to become a nurse. She couldn’t fulfill her dream of studying in Iran, since the cost of tuition and living were far too high for non-Iranians like herself to reasonably afford. The Iranian government assesses citizenship on paternal — a father’s — descent. Despite being born in the country, the absence of birthright citizenship legislation denied Zainab her Iranian nationality, effectively ending her access to higher education there.
Faced with few options, in January 2018, seventeen-year-old Zainab returned to her family’s cultural place of origin: Afghanistan. She stayed with her aunt, who lived in Kabul and worked as a midwife in U.S. and Afghan government funded hospitals, improving healthcare infrastructure and maternal care in Afghanistan. Zainab decided to attend Kabul University in Afghanistan, given the tuition was significantly lower than in other bordering countries, and she already had housing with her aunt.
While at the time she was aware of some of the potential threats in Afghanistan, nothing could have prepared her for the fear and trauma she would come to endure, she said.
“The first week I came to my Aunt’s house, I experienced an earthquake. I thought it was [an] earthquake, but I turned the corner, and I saw three bombs close to my house,” Mazari said. “I saw the blood and Taliban in the streets, and after that I was numb.”
The persecution and attacks against women constantly made Zainab uncomfortable and insecure as the Taliban slowly regained territory. Under Taliban rule, women are unable to access necessities freely, including healthcare. Women are only allowed to be treated by female doctors; however, the Taliban’s infringement on women’s ability to attend school and work has resulted in a lack of female doctors who can treat Afghanistan’s female population. Women who violate any of these rules often face severe punishments, like public beatings and executions from Taliban enforcers. According to the UN, in 2022, only 10% of Afghan women living in the country were able to cover their basic health needs, and in 2021 less than 5% of Afghan women even had a bank account.
“I was scared every moment being in Kabul. Walking outside was scary, but even staying at home was scary because I never knew what could happen,” Zainab said. “I had nightmares about being taken or shot.”
Zainab knew she had to escape Afghanistan; America was her beacon of hope. In early 2019, Zainab applied for the U.S. DV-2020 “Diversity Immigrant Visa” Program. The U.S. government first established this lottery system in 1990 to grant permanent resident visas — more commonly called “green cards” — to individuals from countries with historically low immigration rates to the U.S. Among millions of applicants, a limited number are randomly chosen each cycle and offered the opportunity to apply for a green card. In 2020, out of their 14,722,798 applicants worldwide, the U.S. Department of State only selected 77,000 to move on to the next step — and Zainab was one of them.
This extraordinary 0.52% chance landed her an interview with an American Immigration officer, who asked her about her background, education, work experience, family ties and future plans in the U.S. to confirm her eligibility.
By the end of 2019, she was nearly finished with the documentation needed to finalize her permanent resident visa — but the Taliban’s increasing authority prevented her from doing so. Notaries and other services necessary to obtain her documents disappeared.
Ultimately, Zainab couldn’t submit her documents to American officers in time. As a result, her and many others’ visa opportunities went to waste; Afghans like Zainab who were successful in the DV-2020 lottery couldn’t complete the process.
Amidst her disappointment, violence was still ever-present in Afghanistan, especially for youth like Zainab. In 2020, Taliban gunmen killed 22 students on Kabul University’s main campus, located in the Karte Sakhi neighborhood of Kabul. Zainab had studied at a nearby satellite campus and grew increasingly scared of Taliban attacks on students specifically.
“After the other part of Kabul University was destroyed, I always sat next to the window so that if they came, I could jump out the window and die instead of Taliban shooting me,” Zainab said.
In August 2021, U.S. and NATO troops left Afghanistan entirely. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his staff quickly had to flee to the United Arab Emirates, and the Afghan government completely collapsed in the following days. Consequently, the Taliban quickly took over Kabul, leaving Zainab trapped.
Four months before the Taliban officially closed Kabul University in December 2021, they threatened to attack the campus where Zainab had been studying. Due to relentless anxiety over her safety as a student, Zainab chose to unenroll. The decision, though difficult because it meant abandoning the life she had known until then, was one that Zainab knew she had to make to ensure her survival.
With Afghanistan growing more unsafe, Zainab and her aunt knew they needed to imminently make their escape. In September 2021, Zainab’s aunt received a special immigration visa from the U.S. government for her work supporting women’s rights at U.S.-owned hospitals. Special immigration visas depend on a case-by-case basis, but when the U.S. started evacuating its forces, they granted visas to most staff at facilities funded by America. Later, her aunt was able to add Zainab’s incomplete visa case to her own, granting Zainab a way out of Afghanistan.
Zainab felt overwhelmingly grateful for this opportunity to forge a better life in the U.S., but she had only one month to reconcile with all that she was leaving behind in both Iran and Afghanistan. Zainab was only allowed to bring a backpack containing her documents to build her new chapter in America.
After a seventeen-hour flight, in October 2021, Zainab arrived in America and ultimately settled in Maryland with her aunt because of the state’s proximity to government offices in D.C. Zainab had finally achieved what she had sought for years: safety. After settling into her new residence in Olney, Maryland, she applied to in-state colleges while supporting herself with part-time jobs at Mediterranean restaurant Moby Dick and the Bethesda YMCA.
Life in America posed different challenges. Zainab was still learning English and, the language barrier often left her feeling isolated from her peers.
“I barely knew any English,” she said. “Even a three-year-old American boy could talk better than me, which made me have low self-esteem.”
Zainab is almost finished with her undergraduate studies at Montgomery College, where she studies English. Once she graduates, she plans to attend nursing school, where she can follow in her aunt’s footsteps and finally fulfill her childhood dream of becoming a nurse.
“My family asks me if I ever think of coming back to Afghanistan or Iran,” Zainab said. “I never think about it because in the U.S., I feel happiness and that whatever I want in life I can get here. I can go to college, get scholarships and work. There are no obstacles I have here in achieving my goals.”
Zainab’s story is one of millions. She was lucky enough to escape; many others weren’t. In 2020, 60,000 Afghans entered the visa lottery, and of the Afghan applicants for the 2020-21 fiscal year, a mere 2,189 were selected. Many women still remain in the country, deprived of basic freedoms and suffering under the Taliban’s oppression. Though she never considers returning, Zainab often thinks about who’s left.
“I always ask myself if there’s any way I can help women in Afghanistan now,” Zainab said. “My wish is one day they have freedom — from men and the government.”
