Women, girls struggle for basic rights in Afghanistan one year after the Taliban takeover

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• Judy Woodruff:

  The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan one year ago today sent the nation into yet another spiral of turmoil.

  The chaotic withdrawal by the U.S. and NATO allies triggered a frenzied and disastrous evacuation, as tens of thousands of desperate and fearful Afghans swarmed Kabul's international airport in an attempt to escape. The Taliban claimed to be different this time, making tall promises of an open, inclusive Islamic government.

  Over the coming days, we will look at the Afghanistan left behind under Taliban rule one year on.

  We begin with the plight of Afghan women and girls, who have had their freedoms snatched away, once again put under the Taliban's harsh rule.

  Special correspondent Jane Ferguson reports.

• Person:

  I remember, that day, I was about to go to the mathematics institute that I was going, because I was trying to take the entry exam for university.

• Jane Ferguson:

  For many women and girls in Afghanistan, August 15 is a day impossible to forget, especially for those, like this girl who dreamed of an education, a career.

• Person:

  I was really interested to one day work at the United Nations. And that was my biggest dream.

• Jane Ferguson:

  We are hiding her identity for her safety.

  When the Taliban took over the country a year ago, they promised women and girls rights would be respected, a promise unfulfilled to this day. A recent in-depth investigation by Amnesty International has documented the devastating collapse in women's rights under the Taliban.

  "The scope, magnitude and severity of the Taliban's violations against women and girls are increasing month by month," it states. "Within a year of its takeover of Afghanistan, the group's draconian policies are depriving millions of women and girls of the opportunity to lead safe, free and fulfilling lives. They are being sentenced, as one Afghan woman put it, to death in slow motion."

  Girls over 14 continue to be banned from public school. Younger girls can still attend, but few have a realistic career ahead. Women have been forced from the workplace. And some are arbitrarily detained and tortured in prison if they break the rules for something as simple as leaving their homes without a male guardian.

• Nicolette Waldman, Amnesty International:

  And so these women would just go out sometimes just to the shop or go out to have a coffee, and, suddenly, they're in a detention center.

  What they're facing in the detention center, what we heard from these prison staff members and then two women as well who've been detained for these charges is that they're facing torture, including solitary confinement. They're also facing regular beating in detention.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Nicolette Waldman is the author of the report. She and her team conducted dozens of interviews with women and girls across Afghanistan.

• Nicolette Waldman:

  We heard the story of one woman who was actually brought in with her newborn — she was breast-feeding the newborn at the time — as a punishment for this moral corruption charge. She was separated from that child and wasn't able to breast-feed that child in solitary confinement.

  So, just to go out to the shops, you might end up in prison. And I think this is something…

• Jane Ferguson:

  It's a form of intimidation.

• Nicolette Waldman:

  It's a form of intimidation.

• Jane Ferguson:

  So, it's working.

• Nicolette Waldman:

  It's definitely working.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Young women we spoke with said they saw Taliban brutality up close in the months following their takeover.

• Person:

  They were just beating a girl, a young girl, I think. She was my age. And they were just beating her so violently, although she had full hijab on, and there wasn't even anything wrong with her appearance. It was even hard to watch.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Many others like her have watched things over the past year they should never have had to.

• Person:

  Seeing your country, all the things that you have been working for, all the things that your generation have been working for, they are shattering and they are falling apart. And it was very painful for me and for my generation, because we have worked a lot.

  Sorry.

• Jane Ferguson:

  The emotional toll on her and her friends is massive. After 40 years of war, yet another generation has been left traumatized.

• Person:

  Now I feel like I'm mentally destroyed. I don't have any motivation anymore. Like, I'm not inspired to study or to do something creative like I used to. I feel like staying at home and sleeping more often, it wasn't like the way I was. I got a dark depression twice.

• Jane Ferguson:

  It must have been very tough.

• Person:

  Yes.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Like her, every girl we spoke with told us of the mental health battles they are now forced to fight.

• Person:

  It has been the toughest year of my life. It is the worst feeling, I would say. Like, not being able to study and to be deprived of your right to education, it is the worst feeling. It is undescribable in words and it is really saddening to be — to have not a clear vision of your future, whilst you have had lots of dreams to be fulfilled.

• Jane Ferguson:

  What were your dreams? What did you want to do?

• Person:

  I just wanted to be involved in politics, and something that is impossible in today's Afghanistan. I wanted to get at earn a diploma. I really had the passion to be involved in politics since I was very young.

• Jane Ferguson:

  For some of her friends, life is literally unbearable.

• Person:

  They tried to commit suicide because they got depression, like, being at home for six whole months. I asked one of them. And she told me that she didn't know what she was doing, because the kind of stress she had was overwhelming.

• Jane Ferguson:

  The Taliban have come down hardest on the women who dare to protest in the street for their rights, arresting and holding them in prison for days of beatings. Incredibly, many still refuse to quit. On Saturday, women protested in Kabul, defying Taliban gunmen.

• Nicolette Waldman:

  They're not giving up. And I think that was something that was so interesting from the interviews, was this sense of real sadness, despair, but, just with that, a sense that they will keep fighting. They will, at any cost.

  A lot of them feel they have nothing to lose. So they would say: We realized all the risks that we were facing out in the streets to protest, so we came inside. But then, when we came inside, we realized we were just dying every second of the day. So, we felt we had to go out and just live our lives and show how much this means to us.

• Jane Ferguson:

  What do these women want the White House, the Pentagon, the E.U. to do?

• Nicolette Waldman:

  What we think, you have to call for an action that's going to influence the Taliban, but not harm the Afghan people.

  What we think could do that would be targeted sanctions or travel bans for specific members of the Taliban who are involved in the systematic discrimination against women and girls.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Until there is enough pressure on the Taliban to change, women will have to endure, working hard to believe things will get better.

• Person:

  In this year I realized how emotionally, actually, fragile I was, because I was thinking, oh, yeah, I can struggle with things and I am strong enough.

  But, this year, I realized that I am really vulnerable to these mental pressures that it has for me. And I think that was a beautiful thing, because this vulnerability, it taught me so many things. And I think I'm stronger than the year before. I just feel stronger and much more committed to my dreams right now.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Do you still be believe in that dream? Do you think that you can still make that work?

• Person:

  I have never stopped believing in my dreams and in myself But, right now, the difference is that I see a lot of challenges and more uncertainty than before.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Twenty million Afghan women are now entering a second year under Taliban rule. Their rights continue to be denied and stolen brazenly, in full view of the, world.

  For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jane Ferguson.