The following was written by one of the countless young Afghan women who have, for the last five years, struggled to continue their education, maintain their self-respect, and nurture their dreams for the future, under their country’s laws which deny them all of that.
Part 1
Hello.
I am an Afghan girl living in Afghanistan; a place where, unfortunately, many girls and women have been deprived of their most basic rights.
Before the fall of the government, I was a medical student. At the exact time when my final exams were taking place, universities were closed, and we were no longer allowed to return to our universities. All the efforts, dreams, and future that I had worked so hard for suddenly came to a stop.
After that, I spent about a year suffering from depression and experiencing a very difficult emotional situation. When I slowly started feeling better, I decided to learn English so that maybe I could find a new hope for my future, but that path also became difficult.
Every day, the situation for girls and women in Afghanistan becomes more limited and harder.
Many people say that Afghanistan is peaceful now, that there is no longer war, that roads and buildings are being built, and that tourists travel to Afghanistan. They say everything is fine.
But what they do not see is the lives of girls and women who have been deprived of education, work, freedom of movement, and even a normal life.
I stay at home. In my own country, I am not allowed to freely go to many places. I feel like a bird that is trapped in a cage.
I am truly not okay. My body is alive, but I feel that many of my dreams and hopes are imprisoned.
My only wish is that one day I can study again, become a doctor, and have the right to choose my own life and live freely like every other human being.
Sometimes I ask myself:
If I had been born in another country, would my life have been like this?
I do not want much. I only want the right to study, work, go outside, build my future, and live like a normal human being.
It is painful to watch the world talk about progress, freedom, and opportunities, while you are deprived of the simplest rights only because you were born a girl.
We are not statistics.
We are not news stories.
We are human beings; with dreams, talents, and futures that become smaller every day.
No one can imagine what it feels like to be imprisoned at home without committing any crime. The hardest prison is the one that slowly takes away a person’s hope.
Despite all these difficulties, there is still a small hope in a corner of my heart; a hope that one day I can study again, smile again, and experience the life that has been taken away from me for years.
Life in the Boomer Lane 
Kate Crimmins
September 9, 2026
Very sad.