In a country where official policy has literally erased the presence of women, the existence of Zan Times is proof of subversion—and resistance. The exiled media organisation led by Afghan women was set up in August 2022 with a “mission to report human rights violations in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan”.

Over nearly four years, Zan Times has worked with over 130 journalists and writers inside Afghanistan as well as those in exile. Many who report cannot use their real names for fear of imprisonment, or even death. In 2025, the Courage in Journalism award by the International Women’s Media Foundation went to “Sana Atef”. It is not her real name and she can never be named.

Zan Times has reported on what it means to be a woman in a country where girls are not allowed to study beyond secondary school, where they cannot leave their homes without a male guardian (mahram), where they must be covered from head to toe, and where even the sound of their voice in public is banned. Most recently, the Taliban issued a decree allowing the beating of women by their mahrams, provided no bones are broken.

Stories published on the website raise global awareness of the world’s most egregious human rights violations. They also serve to record and document these violations.

I spoke to Zahra Nader, the founding editor-in-chief of this remarkable publication. In 2021 when the Taliban returned to Afghanistan following the withdrawal of US troops, she was doing her PhD and living in Canada with her Afghan-Canadian husband and young son. It soon became clear that she would not be able to return home.

Using the Canadian $30,000 she had saved to build a home back in Kabul, Zahra started Zan Times from Edmonton, Canada where she lives. I spoke to Zahra on the phone, on Whatsapp and on email. Here she is, in her words:

Why did you feel the need to start Zan Times?

After the Taliban returned to power, they began systematically removing women from public life, including from journalism. In December 2021, Reporters Without Borders reported that four out of five women journalists in Afghanistan had lost their jobs. I saw that women journalists were disappearing from newsrooms, and with them, women’s perspectives and stories were also disappearing from a country where the regime in power had waged a war on women.

That is why I felt we needed to create our own platform where Afghan women journalists could continue reporting on life in Afghanistan under Taliban rule and ensure that women’s voices and experiences are not erased. I wanted us, as Afghan women, to be the author of our own stories.

As an exiled media organization, how do you report on the ground?

We work with two teams. One team is mostly in exile and consists primarily of editors and coordinators. The second team is inside Afghanistan.

Journalists inside the country work under extremely difficult conditions. For their safety, they report under pseudonyms, and they are individually connected to editors outside the country. Their safety and security are our highest priority.

What was it like to grow up in Afghanistan?

When the Taliban took power in the 1990s, my family was living in Bamiyan province. As members of the Hazara and Shia minority community, life was extremely difficult. The province was effectively under economic blockage with very little food reaching our communities. Because of these conditions, my family immigrated to Iran.

Growing up as an Afghan refugee in Iran was also challenging. I was denied my right to education and racism against Afghans was part of daily life. After the Taliban regime was toppled, my family returned to Afghanistan in 2003 and settled in a suburb of Kabul. The area lacked running water and electricity, but a nearby public school offered hope.

In the first year after our return, many families were still worried about security and that it might not yet be safe for girls to attend school. So my sister and I did not go to school that year. We began attending in the following year. The school was about an hour’s walk each way and the conditions were extremely basic. Without a permanent structure, classes were set up in tents.

While I was in high school, there was a book competition—you had to pick up a book and then answer questions. The office of the competition organisers happened to share space with a local paper, Keramat Weekly. When I went to sign up for the competition, I overheard the editor-in-chief and others discussing publishing. That is when I approached him and asked if they would consider publishing a poem I had written. He agreed, and after the poem was published, they offered me an internship.

So my entry into journalism happened somewhat accidentally. Seeing my byline gave me a feeling that I had power. What kept me in journalism was the sense that it gave people like me, those from marginalised backgrounds, a way to question those in power and hold them accountable.

What was it like to be a woman in Afghanistan in those days?

In 2003, there was a lot of insecurity. It was not considered safe to send daughters to school. The situation was far from perfect for young women, but there was a chance to study, to become somebody. There was a lot of hope.

Afghan media was being funded by aid and my presence was needed because women in the newsroom looked good for funders. But even though we were physically present, our perspective didn’t really matter and we didn’t have a lot of voice.

In 2015, a male editor managing a newsroom of more than two dozen journalists told me that I could never be a good journalist because I was a woman. When I asked why, he said women could not stay late at night, could not cover attacks, and could not travel. What struck me was that I had never even been given the opportunity to try to do those things. The assumption itself was the barrier.

Later, when I began working with The New York Times, the environment was different. Assignments were often based on who volunteered. If I volunteered to cover an attack, no one would say I could not do it because I was a woman.

In 2016, when I was covering the attack on the American University of Afghanistan at night, I happened to meet that same colleague again. I told him, “It is 10 p.m., you are here covering this attack, and I am here too.” It was a moment that made clear that the real obstacle had never been my ability, but assumptions about my gender.

How did you end up in Canada?

The security situation in Afghanistan was becoming increasingly difficult around 2017. My husband is Afghan-Canadian, and he sponsored me to come to Canada, so I arrived here as a sponsored refugee. I had hoped to continue working as a journalist, but it was difficult to do so immediately, so I returned to school. I completed a Master’s degree in Communication and Culture at York University and later began a PhD in Women and Gender Studies, with the hope that I would one day return to Afghanistan to teach at Kabul University.

When the Taliban took over in 2021, that dream collapsed. I realised I could not return home. As a journalist, the only meaningful response I could think of was to continue telling the story of Afghanistan, especially what was happening to women. That eventually led to the creation of Zan Times—zan means woman—because I felt, we as Afghan women journalists needed our own platform to continue reporting from inside the country.

Can you describe what it is like to be a woman living in Afghanistan today?

Being a woman in Afghanistan today means that your very existence in society is being erased. The Taliban do not recognise women as independent social beings who can participate in public life, express their views, or make decisions about their own lives.

Instead, women are reduced to narrow roles within the household. The Taliban’s policies aim to remove women from public spaces and restrict them to domestic roles such as childbearing and serving their families.

Women cannot move freely. They often must be accompanied by a male guardian to leave their homes. They are forced to cover themselves completely in public, and even their voices are banned. Women cannot even visit clinics without a male chaperone. These restrictions shape every aspect of daily life for women in Afghanistan.

How do women negotiate their way through life in Afghanistan?

Women are trying to survive under extremely restrictive circumstances. Many are finding creative ways to continue learning and supporting their families.

Some run secret schools or underground education initiatives. Others participate in online education or remote work when possible. Many are simply trying to navigate daily life with very limited choices, doing whatever they can to maintain dignity and hope in a very difficult environment.

Is there any support from men?

Yes, many men support the women in their families and communities. Fathers, brothers, and husbands often play an important role in enabling women to continue working or studying.

Many families made the difficult decision to leave Afghanistan specifically so their daughters could continue their education. Even among our contributors, some women journalists are supported by male relatives who help them travel for interviews or continue their work.

Do you feel the world has paid enough attention to the problems women face in Afghanistan?

I do not think the world has paid enough attention. Four years have passed since the Taliban returned to power and we have not seen meaningful change.

What is particularly concerning is that the systematic removal of women’s rights in Afghanistan is happening without effective global action to reverse it. This sends a troubling message that women’s rights can be stripped away and there may be no international system capable of preventing it.

Another worrying development is the growing normalisation of the Taliban internationally. Some countries, including India are engaging with the Taliban diplomatically without prioritising the rights of Afghan women. When governments treat women’s rights as an internal matter rather than a universal human rights issue, it weakens the global standard for protecting women everywhere.

Can you explain how the new Taliban edict legalising the beating of a wife provided no bones are broken came about?

This development did not happen suddenly. It is part of a gradual and systematic process of restricting women’s rights since the Taliban returned to power.

In the first weeks after taking power, women were banned from many public sector jobs. Soon after, girls were banned from secondary education. Later, rules were introduced requiring women to cover themselves from head to toe and restricting their ability to travel without a male guardian.

In July–August 2024, the Taliban formalised many of these restrictions through the Vice and Virtue law, which further tightened control over women’s behaviour in public spaces, including restrictions on women’s voices and presence in public life.

The new criminal code continues this trajectory by codifying forms of control and violence against women. It reflects the Taliban’s broader system of governance, which systematically removes women from public life and legal protections.

In what ways can the world help the women of Afghanistan?

First, governments and international bodies should not normalise and legitimise the Taliban regime in the name of pragmatism.

Second, people around the world can show solidarity with Afghan women by learning about what is happening and speaking about it in their own communities. Awareness is the first step toward meaningful solidarity.

At Zan Times, we believe that knowledge and awareness are powerful tools, and that is why we focus on publishing reports produced by Afghan journalists themselves.

(Follow stories on zantimes.com. On Instagram @zantimes_. On X @ZanTimes. Sign up for their free weekly newsletter here.)

© hindustantimes