Afghan woman sends heartbreaking letter to Angelina Jolie about life under Taliban
Angelina Jolie has taken to Instagram to raise awareness on the brutality being unleashed on women in Afghanistan. The 46-year-old actress recently shared a personal letter on Instagram, that she received from a young woman in the country. Parts of the letter were blurred out to conceal the woman's identity.
"A young woman in #Afghanistan sent me this letter. I’m protecting her identity, but she hasn’t been able to go back to school since the Taliban seized power. Now, with women being arrested simply for taking part in peaceful protests, she writes “I might never be able to go outside again or even be able to speak as I am a girl.”," Angelina Jolie wrote, sharing the letter.
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Jolie has been a special envoy to the UN's high commissioner for refugees and has previously expressed her concerns about the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan. She has also expressed her anger over the decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan, which led to the government falling to the Taliban.
Sharing the letter, Jolie wrote, "This is an extract from her letter: “I feel like women don’t have any right to speak or put their word forward. The rights of the woman are taken away from them and they are not allowed to do anything in the country. Few weeks back when the Taliban arrested 2 of the women who raised their voices in order to ask for the rights of woman and freedom, I just thought, that this is the end and I might never be able to go outside again or even be able to speak as I am a Girl.”"
"Please track what is happening in Afghanistan, where young women are being taken from their homes at night at gunpoint and disappeared, and new restrictions are being imposed on the freedom of women and girls day by day. Please help ensure they’re not forgotten," she added.
Expressing her concerns over the condition of women under the Taliban, the actress had earlier said, "We have lost leverage to influence what now happens in Afghanistan. We lack a strategy to monitor and support women and civil society in Afghanistan, who the Taliban have a history of targeting - banning girls from school, confining women to the home, and inflicting brutal physical punishments, including public lashing, on any woman perceived to have stepped out of line."
Jolie had added that the withdrawal from Afghanistan has created "a new refugee crisis, on top of record global displacement, with nearly a quarter of a million Afghans displaced within the country since May 80 percent of them women and girls."