Youth Activism in Afghanistan: In Conversation with Nila Ibrahimi
- Nadia Jahnecke
- Jul 1, 2024
- 15 min read
Updated: Jun 27
Nila Ibrahimi is a 16-year-old Afghan women’s rights activist who narrowly escaped the Taliban following their return in August 2021. Upon the overthrow of Kabul in August 2021, Nila’s online notoriety as an activist and her status as a member of the Hazara ethnic community rendered her a target of the Taliban. Nila now resides in Canada with her family and continues to raise her voice to injustice as she raises awareness and fights for the all the women left behind in Afghanistan.
CJLPA: Welcome Nila Ibrahimi, and many thanks for taking the time to come and interview with The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art, to discuss your story of having to lose everything you love and know in the name of fighting for women’s rights. Following the return of the Taliban in August 2021, you voiced the need to protect women’s human rights through your online presence as an activist. As a result, you became a target to the Taliban and this put you and your family in immediate danger, having to narrowly escape Afghanistan.
I would like to begin by asking you to briefly take us through your story, from your initial reaction when the Taliban first reached Dasht-e-Barchi to having to escape your homeland and everything you know to find refuge in Canada.
Nila Ibrahimi: It all started from 15 August when the Taliban got to Kabul. Before that, they had conquered the other provinces of the country, and Kabul could be next. But it was shocking and so horrible that it happened in a day. I mean, I can’t say that day was a normal day in the beginning, but we were just having breakfast and I was thinking if I should start studying for tests that we could have the next day.
I was in the middle of studying when the neighbours told my mom that they had arrived. That was when we were all in panic and we started burning the documents of my whole family, especially of my father who had passed away a month after I was born. And it was so shocking because, from what I remember, I was feeling like Kabul and Afghanistan—our whole country—was kind of trapped with the Taliban, people who did not believe in democracy and in women’s rights or in human rights in general. And I felt like the world had shut their eyes on us. It was just a very difficult situation. That’s all I could say.
CJLPA: Going back to your upbringing, and having just spoken about how you have lost your father at such a young age when you were only a few months old, in regard to the Taliban’s requirement that men accompany women on outings, how did not having a male chaperone in your family affect you and your mother? Were there hardships specific to your family dynamic because of this?
NI: My father passed away a month after I was born, so in the first period of the Taliban coming to Afghanistan, I was not born. I have just heard the stories that my mom told me about her not being able to go outside the home without a man because it wasn’t allowed during that time. And I think, even if women have the mindset that they are independent, by these small rules, it can change by the passage of time. Them having to rely on a man for doing small things like going out to go shopping or for a walk, all of these things can affect their mindset in the long run of them thinking that they’re dependent on men. I think it’s a whole big philosophy in general—men and women and their rights—but what I know is that they should have equal rights. But that wasn’t the case back then. And I think, now that the Taliban are in Afghanistan, it’s going to happen by the passage of time. I hear from the people back home that girls with different coverages, who aren’t more modest, are going to be taken by the Taliban and God knows what will happen to them. So they have no other choice than having a male chaperone wherever they go.
