photo #8783205

Farakhanda was only 17. Just a teenager who should have been living her youth, not being forced to marry and dying in silence. 45 days after her wedding, she was killed, a so-called “mystery” death under the Taliban, which is no mystery at all. This is what state-sponsored femicide looks like when women’s lives are worth less than a man’s so-called honor. And just two days ago, another afghan woman, this time pregnant, was left outside a hospital, denied entry because she refused to wear the mandatory face-covering. She lost her baby at the hospital door. She herself is now in a coma. This is not just a story of one girl or one tragedy. It is a pattern of crime against humanity under an apartheid system that the world must not ignore. Farakhanda joins a list of Afghan girls whose lives were stolen before they even began: Girls forced into marriage before they become adults. Girls beaten for “disobedience”. Girls buried under the shame the family doesn’t want to carry. Girls killed because under Taliban rule, a woman’s life is cheaper than a man’s honor. And the Taliban’s regime is built on the bodies of girls like her.