Afghanistan Peace CampaignAfghanistan Analysts Network
As opportunities have narrowed for women and girls outside the home – under the Islamic Emirate’s many restrictions – many have turned to the internet to try to replace what they have lost. In this instalment of The Daily Hustle, Roxanna Shapour hears from Sayeda, a young Afghan woman in Kabul who not only studies and works from home, but also volunteers. She has even established a network to help other women earn an income and build a sense of purpose. Yet even as the internet has become a lifeline, Sayeda’s story shows the limits of this virtual world. Poor connectivity and security concerns constrain what she can do. Nevertheless, she has persisted with her online activities, continuing to learn and create opportunities for herself and other women.
Entrepreneurs take part in business development training at a women’s centre in Parwan province. Photo: UN Women/Ali Omid Taqdisyan, January 2025
My name is Sayeda. I’m a young Afghan woman and I live much of my life online. I tell people I’m a virtual girl because almost everything I do happens in the virtual world. I study online, volunteer online and socialise online. I get training online and give training to other people online. I even search online for things I need to buy. I even have a job that is entirely online.
But life wasn’t always like this.
When I lived in the physical world
When the Taliban came back to power in August 2021, I’d just finished college and started working for an NGO in Kabul. For six months, I got a taste of what life with a career and a purpose would be like. I worked in an office every day and as part of my job, I moved around a lot. I visited project sites, including a school and a clinic, where I’d talk to staff and monitor their work. When there was an aid distribution, I’d go along to see what was happening and talk to the people receiving it. I worked with six other women and when we had some free time, we’d sit together, joke around or have long conversations about our plans and dreams for the future. One of my colleagues wanted to create a clothing brand and sometimes we’d meet in a café to talk about her plans. She’s now started an online clothing business and, like me, she lives online.
Afghan families are protective of their daughters, so even before the Taliban, I couldn’t just go wherever I wanted. I had to ask my parents if I could go out with friends. They’d want to know where I was going, how I’d get there and when I’d be back. I had to be home before dark and there were places they didn’t want me to go. Still, compared to now, I led a very mobile and active life. I was always meeting people, seeing and learning new things. I’d go shopping with friends, meet them in cafés and visit them at home. There were family outings too, especially on Fridays, when relatives and friends joined us for picnics, meals in restaurants or visits to each other’s homes.
Now, that’s all a thing of the past. Many of our friends and relatives have left Afghanistan. The friends I used to meet for coffee or shopping are scattered across the world and the colleagues I used to sit with and discuss our plans aren’t part of my everyday life anymore. Those who are still here are struggling financially. You can’t just invite people to a restaurant as you did before because there’s often an expectation that they’ll reciprocate and many people can’t afford it anymore.
It’s funny, the internet gives you access to the whole world, but for me, the world feels a lot smaller these days.
A butterfly that can go anywhere
In the early days after the Taliban came to power, some friends and I started helping other young Afghans find educational opportunities. We’d organise motivational sessions and show people how to find scholarships and apply to universities. Eventually, we had to stop because our work was attracting a lot of attention. Drawing attention to yourself as a woman doing this kind of work can feel unsafe and my family was worried. Now, I volunteer online for an NGO that helps Afghan women find higher education opportunities. I manage its scholarship database, looking for opportunities in different countries and adding them so that women in the programme can find them.
But I kept thinking I could do more.
As part of my job, I talk to women in different provinces about their lives, their work, their families and their economic situation. I’ve spoken to women who’ve lost their jobs and women who are trying to keep their businesses going despite all the difficulties. Those conversations made me think about how I could help women not only earn an income but also find a sense of purpose. That’s why, in 2026, I founded the Behbud Network.
Behbud means improvement and that’s what I want the network to offer women – the chance to improve their lives by working, earning and building something of their own. Our logo is a butterfly. I chose it because the butterfly is free. It can go anywhere without restrictions. It goes to beautiful places and when people see it, they feel happy and at peace. We’re still small and self-funded and everyone’s a volunteer. But we already have around thirty women in our network – founders, entrepreneurs and businesswomen trying to establish or expand their businesses. Eventually, I hope we’ll have a hundred members or more.
We recently organised an online training session on networking with around fifty participants and we’re hoping to launch a monthly podcast where women can talk about their experiences so that other Afghan women can learn from them. We communicate on WhatsApp and by email and have a shared workspace on Google Drive. We can share documents, add comments and ideas and see what other team members are working on, even though we’re far apart. Some of us have worked together since 2021 without ever meeting face-to-face. We live in different provinces, but online we can meet whenever we need to.
But working online doesn’t mean we feel completely free or safe. Before I organise something, I have to think about what might happen. Before I invite someone to join us, I have to think about who they are. Before I share something, I have to think about who might see it. I have to think about security, not just my own but also the security of the other women who take part in our activities. I worry all the time about who’s in an online group. We’ve heard rumours that WhatsApp groups or online networks have been infiltrated, so we always have to worry that someone we don’t know very well could find their way into our workspace or group chats and create problems for us.
More than just earning money
I want Behbud to create opportunities for women to work and not only to earn an income. Work gives you something beyond money – a sense of purpose, something to do and something to build. We’re still in the start-up phase. Our first idea is a pickle-making business, but we haven’t hired women or produced anything for sale yet. We don’t have outside funding, so I’ll have to start with some of my own money. Even something as physical as a bottle of pickles starts online. When I need bottles or other materials, I search for them online, contact the vendors online and either arrange for samples to be sent to me or ask one of my brothers to pick them up.
Eventually, I want us to sell our products across Afghanistan. When somebody buys a bottle of our pickles, I don’t want them to feel they’ve only bought pickles. I want the packaging to have motivational messages and maybe a small gift, something that gives our customers some positive energy. Later, I’d like Behbud to develop other businesses, maybe making soap or disinfectants. I’d rather have different businesses employing different women so we can create more opportunities, especially for women who’ve lost their jobs and women who’ve returned to Afghanistan and need a way to earn an income.
Looking for ways to keep learning
I was applying for graduate school when the Taliban came back to power. I wanted to do a master’s degree abroad, but opportunities for Afghans have kept narrowing. Now, I can’t simply decide what I want to study and where. When you’re living in Afghanistan and you’re an Afghan woman, you have to look at what opportunities are available. This also happens online – searching for programmes, preparing applications and attending university interviews. I’ve been accepted into a master’s programme in human rights and data science at the American University of Paris. I was even offered a 50 per cent scholarship, but I’ve had to defer my place until 2027 while I look for a way to pay for the rest of the costs.
I keep learning other things online too. This year, I started learning Arabic and Turkish on Duolingo and I’m also taking some business courses. I don’t join every course I find. There are plenty of certificates available, but that’s not what interests me. I’m looking for quality, not certificates.
Like a party on Zoom
The internet isn’t only where I work and study. It’s also how I keep up with my friends. We stay in touch through Instagram, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp and sometimes have group video calls – like a party on Zoom. That doesn’t happen very often. We’re in different time zones and finding a time when everyone’s awake, not working and not busy is no small feat. But every couple of months, we try to get together online and catch up. That’s what I do for fun. Otherwise, fun isn’t something I have very much of these days. I’m almost always busy with work. But sometimes I watch films online or spend time with my family.
Going out isn’t so simple anymore
I do have a very busy virtual life, but in the physical world I hardly go anywhere – maybe once or twice a month. When I do go out, I worry about the restrictions on women’s movement and dress and how they might be enforced. I try to wear everything in black – clothes, shoes, socks and scarf. I even wear a black mask, so my face is completely covered. I like wearing colourful clothes, so wearing all black feels suffocating, as if I’m in mourning. It’s not only Amr bil-Maruf [the enforcers from the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice) that I worry about. Taliban soldiers are everywhere in the city and we hear stories about them stopping women. Family members tell us what they’ve seen a girl in a taxi without a mahram, for example, being stopped by a Taliban soldier. So when I have to go somewhere, I take my mother – because my father and brothers have their own work and responsibilities and she’s often the only person available. It’s not easy for her. She has trouble with her knees and sitting in a car for a long time is difficult. Recently, I had to go to an office to fill out some paperwork. My mother had to come with me. She waited outside in the blistering heat while I filled out the forms. When we got home, she was unwell and had a headache. I felt terrible. I was making my mother suffer just because I needed somebody to come with me on an ordinary trip to an office.
Under the Republic, I could’ve gone on my own. I’d have taken a taxi and wouldn’t have had to worry about having a mahram or wearing the right clothes. Now even arranging a work meeting can become impossible. I once wanted to work with two other people to set up an online platform about climate change. One of the co-founders was a man. We needed to meet in person to discuss the project, but we couldn’t find a safe way to do it. We thought about meeting in a restaurant or café, but worried the Taliban might question why we were sitting together when we weren’t related. In the end, we didn’t meet. And the project never got off the ground.
The day the internet disappeared
Leading a virtual life has its own challenges. The internet in Afghanistan isn’t very reliable. I recently changed providers because my old connection wasn’t good enough. I’m now paying 1,800 afghanis [USD 26] a month for a faster connection, but even that isn’t always reliable. Sometimes I have an important meeting or training session and the connection’s so poor I can’t join. Sometimes I can’t turn on my camera or even get a voice connection. I mostly use mobile data for important meetings because it’s more reliable. We recently held a training webinar and I wanted to upload the recording to YouTube, but the connection was too slow. I still haven’t managed to upload it.
And I know what happens when the internet disappears altogether. At the end of September 2025, the internet went down across Afghanistan. Everything stopped. All my work stopped and all my communication stopped. I couldn’t work with colleagues, join meetings or communicate with the people I normally speak to online. When so much of your life depends on being connected, life stops when the connection stops. And for this virtual girl, life stopped.
This is not the life I chose
The internet gives me access to a world far beyond my home. I can find scholarships, courses, possible collaborators and even buy supplies. I can help other women find opportunities and talk to friends thousands of kilometres away. Recently, I had an online meeting with the head of an organisation in Canada. He was there and I was in Kabul, but we could sit down together online and talk about working together. Almost everything I’ve built depends on the internet. My work, my network, my studies – without it, it’d be like multiplying everything I’ve achieved by zero.
But this online life wasn’t my choice. My choice would’ve been to lead a rich, active life in the physical world, to have something tangible. I want to meet people in person. If I’m talking to a friend or contact in Mazar-e Sharif or Herat, I want to be able to go there, meet them and work with them.
I don’t want to make light of what the internet’s given me. I’ve learned important things from this online life. It’s given me knowledge, skills and confidence. It’s given me the courage to carry out ideas, share them and make plans.
But telling you my story has made me cry. I thought about what my life was like before, what I’d want it to be in the future and what all the women in the rest of the world have that Afghan women don’t. Here, you don’t have choices. You don’t even own yourself. You don’t have a real identity, only a virtual one.
Edited by Kate Clark