They gave me to someone who could not read or write … it would be better if you buried me alive

On my last day of school it seemed years of effort were now contained in one small piece of paper. Everyone was happy at graduation, holding our certificates, each of us had a different road ahead. Friends wanted to study medicine, civil engineering or economics. For me, I wanted aviation – to be a pilot.

We worked hard, preparing for Kankor – the university entry exam – then came the first delay. Coronavirus reached Afghanistan. Everywhere went into quarantine, our exams were postponed.

Eventually, I got into university. On my first day I told myself, “Shabnam, finally, your efforts were not wasted.” The smile would not leave my face.

I worked hard. At the end of the first year, I was the top student in my class of 120 from all 34 provinces of Afghanistan. My father was so proud of me. But my mother said, “My daughter, do not be so happy, someone may cast an evil eye on your happiness.” I wish I had listened.

My mother used to tell stories about the Taliban and say we were left behind from education. Then, in my second year, the Taliban took Afghanistan again. It was goodbye to the university and to our books. A university that would never open again for us. I wished that they had taken our lives instead.

With a thousand miseries, we returned home. I told my mother, “You were right. I wish I had not been so happy.” I did not know that worse lay ahead.

The Taliban said no girl over the age of 15 should remain unmarried. Girls were being forced into engagement. Either the Taliban would marry the girls themselves or the father had to find someone for his daughter.

They gave me to someone who had no education and could not read or write. Crying became all I did day and night.

I told my mother, “It would be better if you buried me alive.” The groom’s family wanted to take me to their home. If I did not accept, the Taliban would detain my father.

One day, my husband said: “If you love studying and education this much, we will get passports and go to Iran. I will work and you can study.”

After getting the passports, my husband asked me to walk to get the visas. I went out and saw a taxi so I got in. I took the risk and travelled alone because it was only about 10 minutes away and no one could come with me.

At the Taliban checkpoint, they asked, “Where is your mahram?” I said my husband had gone to work. They took me to prison.

When my husband came, they questioned him and asked where his wife was going alone. My husband explained. Then they asked what we would do in Iran. When he said “For education”, they replied “Death to education. Who has allowed women to study?”

They insulted me and said to my husband: “You are unfortunate and you have made this poor woman unfortunate, too.”

There were 84 women kept in 10 windowless small rooms around a courtyard. Even though the rooms were small, seven or eight women were kept in each with only two beds. Most slept on the floor. The toilet smelled very bad. Those who could afford pills took them to sleep; some became addicted.

I asked whether there was a phone to use and was shown a room. I phoned my husband and he told me he had been thrown out of the house. “My brothers have put me out and now I am on the streets. They tell me to choose either you or them. But I will never leave you, even if the whole world is against you.”

When I returned the phone, the guard said, “Now you must pay for it.” I was shocked.

The women explained that, without money, you can’t use the phone. The Taliban collect money from them every day. Then I understood why the Taliban use anything as an excuse to imprison people. For money.

They kept people away from family and work and imprisoned innocent people for their own benefit. Each of the women, like me, had been imprisoned without any real reason. I saw a young girl imprisoned because her father had raped her.

Called, like me, bad women, lives were ruined. Some had no family to receive them after release. Women whose families will not take them back often kill themselves. Some have to marry elderly men just to have a roof over their heads. Others do whatever they can to survive. Some sell drugs, some sell their bodies.

Two women killed themselves inside the prison while I was there. After others had gone to sleep, they hanged themselves. I also knew another girl who threw herself in front of a car and died because she was homeless after release.

My husband’s brothers labelled me a bad woman. None of them spoke to my husband except to taunt him. The poor man endured all of it. After three months, I was released from prison. My husband had found a place to rent with great difficulty. The rent was expensive, but I was pregnant.

After my child was born, the landlord threw us out. When my son was two months old, there was a ruined house near my parent’s house and we moved in there. All kinds of insects had made their place inside it. We had no other choice. We could not rent a house in the city because the rent was too high.

Every day I worried over what our future would be. I told my husband, I will also help you and work.

I was following an online cooking channel and taught myself how to make sweets. I began with low-cost sweets and soon I mastered it. I took my sweets to shops to sell. But I had no budget and needed help.

Some foreign organisations support women who want to become self-sufficient. But the Taliban created a chamber of commerce through which they sell that support. If I had 2,000 afghani, they would loan me cash to buy the materials I needed for baking. But I needed to pay back 2,000 afghani (£22.50) each month and I didn’t have this.

So, for now, my dream to have a coffee shop and sell sweets remains just that. One day I will do it: it will be work for myself and girls like me, because I have promised my dreams that I will reach them.