Trapped inside the Taliban's Afghanistan

Women have been barred from most public spaces. Afghan citizens are being deported by nearby countries. And marginalized ethnic groups face persecution and violence. These are their stories. 

On May 8, 2021, a few months before the Taliban came to power, a car bomb detonated at the gates of the Sayed Ul-Shuhada girls’ school. Nearly a hundred people were killed, most of them young teenage girls. Twelve-year-old Mahin* (pictured) suffered severe injuries and was taken to Turkey for treatment, where she watched from afar as the Taliban seized Kabul. One of their first moves after taking control of the government was to shut down girls’ schools. The Dasht-e Barchi area of Kabul, where Mahin’s school was located, is a predominantly Hazara community. Historically, the Hazara population in Afghanistan has been persecuted not just for their ethnic identities but also for their faith, as followers of the Shiite sect of Islam in a predominantly Sunni country. It's been particularly hard for Hazara women, who also often come under attack for their gender identities in a deeply patriarchal society. Photographer Hashem Shakeri met Mahin following her return to Afghanistan. It was two months after the Taliban takeover, and their meeting took place in a home located in the far west of Kabul, on the mountains that flank the Afghan capital. Like most women and girls, she had not ventured out of her home, fearing for her family’s safety.
On May 8, 2021, a few months before the Taliban came to power, a car bomb detonated at the gates of the Sayed Ul-Shuhada girls’ school. Nearly a hundred people were killed, most of them young teenage girls. Twelve-year-old Mahin* (pictured) suffered severe injuries and was taken to Turkey for treatment, where she watched from afar as the Taliban seized Kabul. One of their first moves after taking control of the government was to shut down girls’ schools.  
  
The Dasht-e Barchi area of Kabul, where Mahin’s school was located, is a predominantly Hazara community. Historically, the Hazara population in Afghanistan has been persecuted not just for their ethnic identities but also for their faith, as followers of the Shiite sect of Islam in a predominantly Sunni country. It's been particularly hard for Hazara women, who also often come under attack for their gender identities in a deeply patriarchal society.
  
Photographer Hashem Shakeri met Mahin following her return to Afghanistan. It was two months after the Taliban takeover, and their meeting took place in a home located in the far west of Kabul, on the mountains that flank the Afghan capital. Like most women and girls, she had not ventured out of her home, fearing for her family’s safety.
Photograph by Hashem Shakeri
Text byRuchi Kumar
Photographs byHashem Shakeri
October 15, 2025

When Iranian photographer Hashem Shakeri returned to Kabul in August 2022, it had been less than a year since his first visit to Afghanistan’s capital. And it was less than a year since the Taliban, driven out two decades prior by a U.S.-led invasion, had seized control of Afghanistan. He found himself standing in what already felt like a different country. “The sheer depth of this darkness, the uncertainty, and the inversion of everything was deeply unsettling to me,” he recalls. 

Shakeri’s project, aptly titled “Staring into the Abyss,” is a collection of deeply moving visuals capturing the slow-motion decay of dreams amid a rapid societal collapse. Afghanistan is, in many ways, a country not unlike his own. Growing up in Iran, with a shared heritage and culture, and even a common language, gave Shakeri a unique perspective on both the disintegration of what was and how the new regime was affecting the complex and intersecting echelons of society. 

“All the achievements that the people of [Afghanistan] had struggled so hard for were suddenly erased, taking them back to square one, or perhaps even before square one,” Shakeri says.  

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Shakeri’s images stand as a testament to this loss, visible in the wider landscape of an Afghanistan rife with poverty, unemployment, and starvation. They also seek to highlight the stories of individuals, especially women and members of marginalized groups, who lost their rights and freedoms as the Taliban weaponized their very identities against them. 

The result, as illustrated in Shakeri’s photographs, is a country seemingly stuck in time, its people living in a liminal space between what once was and what could have been. “It [is] like a black hole of ignorance that consumes all light and holds it within, with no clear end to how far it will devour,” Shakeri notes, describing the abyss that is now the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

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Shakeri hopes his images will foster empathy by humanizing communities that have survived years of conflicts, invasions, colonization, and extremist fundamentalism. “When audiences become familiar with the details of people’s lives and personalities, they no longer see them as distant, unfamiliar ‘others.’ Instead, they recognize their shared humanity,” he says.  

Names marked with an asterisk in the captions have been changed for reasons of safety. Ages given reflect when the photographs were taken. 

A group of Afghan girls and boys practice juggling with an adult teacher.
As the Taliban has tightened its grip on Afghan society, social spaces for children, particularly girls, have increasingly been limited or entirely shuttered.  Still, some kids, like this group of teenage girls and young boys, have continued to seek out spaces for learning and levity—like juggling practice with their adult teacher—amid an otherwise stifling environment. 
The southern province of Helmand witnessed some of the most intense battles between the Taliban and foreign forces in the 20 years of the NATO-backed Afghan Republic government. Largely controlled by British forces after the 2001 invasion, Helmand was never fully liberated from the Taliban, making the province symbolically significant to the Taliban’s eventual victory. On his visit there, Shakeri was asked for food by the Taliban fighters in control of the ruins. Many of the fighters, especially those born after the foreign invasions, have only known war for most of their lives.
The southern province of Helmand witnessed some of the most intense battles between the Taliban and foreign forces in the 20 years of the NATO-backed Afghan Republic government. Largely controlled by British forces after the 2001 invasion, Helmand was never fully liberated from the Taliban, making the province symbolically significant to the Taliban’s eventual victory. 
  
On his visit there, Shakeri was asked for food by the Taliban fighters in control of the ruins. Many of the fighters, especially those born after the foreign invasions, have only known war for most of their lives.
More than two million Afghan girls have been forced out of school as of 2025 due to the Taliban’s gender restrictions on higher education. However, women are creating paths, oftentimes discreet and underground, to continue learning—including reading, which has become a form of quiet resistance in Afghanistan. In Kabul, a group of women opened this small library and gave it a name that translates in English to “Woman.” The library, housing a few thousand titles in English, Persian, Arabic, and Pashto, was created to provide a safe space for ideas and learning for Afghan women. But within months of opening, the Taliban shut it down permanently. Interestingly, education remains one of the few issues that has reportedly caused conflict within the Taliban leadership, with some of the Taliban’s own members calling on their supreme leader to resume schools for girls.
More than two million Afghan girls have been forced out of school as of 2025 due to the Taliban’s gender restrictions on higher education. However, women are creating paths, oftentimes discreet and underground, to continue learning—including reading, which has become a form of quiet resistance in Afghanistan. In Kabul, a group of women opened this small library and gave it a name that translates in English to “Woman.” 
  
The library, housing a few thousand titles in English, Persian, Arabic, and Pashto, was created to provide a safe space for ideas and learning for Afghan women. But within months of opening, the Taliban shut it down permanently. Interestingly, education remains one of the few issues that has reportedly caused conflict within the Taliban leadership, with some of the Taliban’s own members calling on their supreme leader to resume schools for girls.
The hands of two Taliban fighters reach for sliced watermelon, while a gun sits on the ground in the middle of the pair.
After fighting against the U.S.-led NATO forces for nearly two decades, the Taliban seized Kabul, the country’s seat of power, on August 15, 2021. As the foreign powers launched a slapdash withdrawal and the Afghan government collapsed, the Taliban marched into cities across the country, gradually making their way to Kabul. Within weeks, the capital was transformed.  
  
Kabul went from being a curious combination of a bustling cosmopolitan center and heavily militarized region to a city of chaos and fear. Beyond the capital, over a million Afghans fled the country, including the U.S.-backed Afghan president Ashraf Ghani. Those who remained watched with apprehension as the nation took yet another historic turn this century, all while the Taliban relished the fruits of their conquest. 
In the Bamyan province, Shakeri witnessed the union of a young couple. For a wedding, the environment was deeply tense. These kinds of celebratory gatherings can easily draw the ire of the Taliban, who disapprove of music and dance. Taliban police conduct raids at public and private events to impose bans on music and revelry; there have been reports of Taliban forces crashing weddings, detaining the groom and the guests, and at times even firing upon the wedding party. As a result, these celebrations—formerly grand affairs in Afghan communities—are now often held in privat
In the Bamyan province, Shakeri witnessed the union of a young couple. For a wedding, the environment was deeply tense. These kinds of celebratory gatherings can easily draw the ire of the Taliban, who disapprove of music and dance. 
  
Taliban police conduct raids at public and private events to impose bans on music and revelry; there have been reports of Taliban forces crashing weddings, detaining the groom and the guests, and at times even firing upon the wedding party. As a result, these celebrations—formerly grand affairs in Afghan communities—are now often held in private. 
Photograph by Hashem Shakeri
On August 31, the Taliban hosted a victory procession marking the anniversary of the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan. Thousands of fighters celebrated across the country. In the ancient northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, Shakeri captured a quiet break in the action on the day of the festivities.
On August 31, the Taliban hosted a victory procession marking the anniversary of the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan. Thousands of fighters celebrated across the country. In the ancient northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, Shakeri captured a quiet break in the action on the day of the festivities.
A mother stands by the wall of her home while the robe of her late son hangs on a line in front of her.
Hailing from Daykundi Province, 48-year-old Zeinab now lives in Mazar-e Sharif. In her hands is a picture of her son Mohammad Reza Ghasemi, who was killed at age 21 when a bomb targeted his van that was carrying mostly Hazara passengers.  
  
The Taliban, which is mostly Pashtun, has exacerbated the marginalization of the Hazara Shiite communities since seizing control of Afghanistan. (Pashtuns, who are largely Sunni Muslims, have long comprised the majority of the ruling class in Afghanistan.) The Islamic State, a regional offshoot of the terrorist group from Iraq and Syria, calling itself the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP), claimed responsibility for the killings. The ISKP views the Hazaras as heretics and often targets schools and places of worship of the Afghan minorities. Despite their shared extremist ideologies, the ISKP sees the Taliban as being foreign-backed and less fundamentalist, and the group often attacks Taliban interests and leaders. 
  
Zeinab says such attacks have become increasingly frequent, with four in the few months before Shakeri met her. Earlier it was the Taliban, she recalls; now the ISKP continues to kill the Hazaras. As days turn into months, Zeinab holds on to Reza’s belongings. She had washed his clothes and asked Ishaq, her other son and Reza’s older brother, to hang them to dry. As Shakeri began to take pictures, Ishaq pulled a shawl that belonged to Reza from a family trunk. He held it close and took a deep breath before wrapping it around his late brother’s freshly laundered clothing. 
A woman crouches down atop the roof of a home in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Despite internal advocacy for women’s education within the Taliban ranks, the high schools and universities in Afghanistan remain closed to women. 
  
As Afghan society grows increasingly gender-segregated, employment and economic opportunities for women have also been cut off, with the Taliban forcing women out of government jobs, academic institutions, and other professional and expert vocations. The impact of this developing skill gap was evident in the national GDP in the first year of the Taliban’s takeover. According to the World Bank, the Afghan economy lost 20 percent in that first year, with 5 percent attributed to the exclusion of women from the labor force. 
A man sits on a bed with his young daughter on his lap with a desk and chair in front of the pair.
Due to the Taliban’s restrictions, women are not only forbidden from most public spaces but also from traveling long distances without a mahram, a male legal guardian. This means that women often cannot visit a doctor or seek medical help in case of emergencies. And even if they are able to get to a clinic or hospital, they're forbidden from seeking treatment from a male doctor without a guardian present. 
  
Mohsen, 28, pictured here with his daughter, Taranom, is an ethnic Hazara from Daykundi Province who became a doctor in the hopes of serving his community as a general practitioner. But the Taliban’s restrictions have made it increasingly difficult for Mohsen to see female patients. At the same time, the lack of women doctors—many fled the country after the Taliban’s siege, and female students are banned from medical school—means that there are far fewer options for women to get health care. Such restrictions add another layer of challenges to women’s access to health care in a country where women were already struggling to receive basic medical support.  
Afghanistan is a country blessed with rolling green hills, lush rivers, pristine natural dams, and gorgeous valleys. In years past, it was not unusual for families to pack an elaborate picnic basket and large quantities of tea and drive to the countryside for the weekend, where amusement parks like this one waited. While Shakeri observed that few people go to these parks now—women are banned from most public spaces—the Taliban’s fighters are a frequent sight there. He found it unusual, almost jarring, to witness armed fighters, such as this group from Wardak Province who had traveled to Kabul, trying to navigate amusement parks. As members of a militant group that spent nearly two decades engaged in battle, few of these men had a normal childhood, as most were radicalized at an early age. Even fewer are familiar with the concept of leisure.
Afghanistan is a country blessed with rolling green hills, lush rivers, pristine natural dams, and gorgeous valleys. In years past, it was not unusual for families to pack an elaborate picnic basket and large quantities of tea and drive to the countryside for the weekend, where amusement parks like this one waited. 
  
While Shakeri observed that few people go to these parks now—women are banned from most public spaces—the Taliban’s fighters are a frequent sight there. He found it unusual, almost jarring, to witness armed fighters, such as this group from Wardak Province who had traveled to Kabul, trying to navigate amusement parks. As members of a militant group that spent nearly two decades engaged in battle, few of these men had a normal childhood, as most were radicalized at an early age. Even fewer are familiar with the concept of leisure. 
Photograph by Hashem Shakeri
In the first half of 2025, nearly two million Afghan immigrants were deported from Pakistan and Iran. These forceful, at times violent, deportations are often triggered by geopolitical events that foster strong anti-migrant sentiments in the region. For 19-year-old Razia (pictured) and her family, Israel’s war with Iran led to her losing her adopted home in Iran, where she grew up and lived for many years after having escaped the war in Afghanistan. They were being accused, like many Afghans were, of being spies for Israel, an accusation that trickled down from the Iranian government and seeped into everyday interactions within the Iranian communities. Razia recalled increasing instances of insults at school and being denied food from charities simply for being Afghan. “Even close friends turned away from us,” she told Shakeri, while she sat at the border between Iran and Afghanistan, resting on the pile of a few meager belongings that her family was able to bring with them. After having received orders from the Iranian government to leave the country, Razia looked toward an uncertain future in a country where women’s identities mean little. “I really don’t know what awaits me and my sisters.”
In the first half of 2025, nearly two million Afghan immigrants were deported from Pakistan and Iran. These forceful, at times violent, deportations are often triggered by geopolitical events that foster strong anti-migrant sentiments in the region. 
  
For 19-year-old Razia (pictured) and her family, Israel’s war with Iran led to her losing her adopted home in Iran, where she grew up and lived for many years after having escaped the war in Afghanistan. They were being accused, like many Afghans were, of being spies for Israel, an accusation that trickled down from the Iranian government and seeped into everyday interactions within the Iranian communities.  
  
Razia recalled increasing instances of insults at school and being denied food from charities simply for being Afghan. “Even close friends turned away from us,” she told Shakeri, while she sat at the border between Iran and Afghanistan, resting on the pile of a few meager belongings that her family was able to bring with them. After having received orders from the Iranian government to leave the country, Razia looked toward an uncertain future in a country where women’s identities mean little. “I really don’t know what awaits me and my sisters.”
Twelve-year-old Yasmin (center) and her siblings, 11-year-old Yasin (left) and 7-year-old Atena (right), have never known a home other than Iran, where they grew up, went to school, made friends, and experienced a sense of community. Their family held legal documents to allow them to live and work in Iran. But that meant little when the Iranian government decided that they would be deported. Overnight, their realities shifted as they were ordered to leave and return to a country where they have no relatives, home or community, or support system to help them build a life. It is particularly harder for the women and young girls, who will for the first time in their lives experience life under the Taliban with mounting restrictions and attacks on their freedoms.
Twelve-year-old Yasmin (center) and her siblings, 11-year-old Yasin (left) and 7-year-old Atena (right), have never known a home other than Iran, where they grew up, went to school, made friends, and experienced a sense of community. Their family held legal documents to allow them to live and work in Iran, but that meant little when the Iranian government decided to deport them. 
  
Overnight, their realities shifted as they were ordered to leave and return to a country where they have no relatives, home or community, or support system to help them build a life. It is particularly hard for the women and young girls, who will for the first time experience life under the Taliban, with mounting restrictions and attacks on their freedoms.
Photograph by Hashem Shakeri
The cost of resistance in Afghanistan is often retributive violence. In the case of Masoud, who was working at a juice stand in Tehran, Iran, when Shakeri first met him—that cost came when he was deported from Iran back to his home country. Rolling up his sleeve, Masoud, who has since returned to Iran, revealed a scar on his arm. Members of the Taliban had set fire to his skin to erase a tattoo he had of his namesake and famed anti-Taliban leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by al-Qaeda in September 2001, days before the 9/11 attacks. Like his namesake, Masoud hails from Panjshir, a small valley north of Kabul. When Shakeri last heard from Masoud, on a phone call months after their meeting, he was struggling to make ends meet and was yet again facing the threat of deportation.
The cost of resistance in Afghanistan is often retributive violence. In the case of Masoud, who was working at a juice stand in Tehran, Iran, when Shakeri first met him—that cost came when he was deported from Iran back to his home country. Rolling up his sleeve, Masoud, who has since returned to Iran, revealed a scar on his arm. Members of the Taliban had set fire to his skin to erase a tattoo he had of his namesake and famed anti-Taliban leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by al-Qaeda in September 2001, days before the 9/11 attacks.  
  
Like his namesake, Masoud hails from Panjshir, a small valley north of Kabul. When Shakeri last heard from Masoud, on a phone call months after their meeting, he was struggling to make ends meet and was yet again facing the threat of deportation.
Two young men with guns stand beside a seated young man with the city of Kabul in the background.
Afghanistan’s transformation from a democratic republic to a fundamentalist authoritarian nation is perhaps most evident in the presence of the thousands of armed Taliban fighters patrolling the streets of the Afghan capital. 
  
From atop Wazir Akbar Khan hill, situated in the heart of Kabul and offering a panoramic view of the ancient city, Tasal, 22, Ekrama, 20, and Badruddin, 22, keep a watchful eye on the land. Hailing from Wardak Province, located west of Kabul, the trio all joined the fight against the U.S.-backed Afghan forces as children. They continued for years without compensation and lived under extremely difficult financial conditions. Only recently, since moving to Kabul and joining the ranks as security forces, have they started to receive a small salary, though it isn’t enough to cover their living expenses. 
A young boy holds up a bird cage with two pet birds inside.
Seven-year-old Erfan is one of the many thousands of Afghans who are being forced to undertake the journey from his birthplace in Iran to Afghanistan. While his family must return to their home country with little promise of financial support or security, he’s found solace with two feathered friends named Ali and Fereshteh that he hopes will be the thread that connects him to his life in Iran. 
An older man in a makeshit wheelchair with his left leg in a full cast is helped along by a younger man.
Safar Mohammad, 65, arrived in Iran decades ago and made a small but comfortable life for himself selling tea. But after breaking his leg recently, he was left without an income; then the deportations started. Thankfully, he met Jan Mohammad Mirzaei, 28, a fellow immigrant who is originally from the province of Badakhshan in Afghanistan and who offered to help him along the deportation route. 
  
At the border between the two countries that defined much of his life and identity, Mohammad is deeply worried about his future, as the only person he knows in Afghanistan is an old acquaintance he hasn’t seen in years. Neither the person who will receive him at the other end of his journey nor the country to which he is being sent are still familiar to Mohammad.
A young girl stands on the roof of the house with Kabul in the background.
Ten-year-old Rana’s* hair billows in the wind as she stands on the roof of her family’s home in Kabul. Located in one of the most impoverished parts of the city, Rana’s family lives in extreme destitution, which has worsened since the Taliban takeover. Looking ahead, with the harsh reality of a Taliban-run nation wherein women and girls face extreme systemic discrimination, her future feels, and remains, uncertain.