aeon: My name is Marjan. In 1996, when the Taliban first took over Afghanistan, I was 12 years old. We lived in Kabul. My father was perpetually unemployed and I could never understand why. While he didn’t do anything to provide for his family, he smoked hashish, which my mother had to pay for. My mother was a cleaner in a government office. Our family’s financial situation was precarious and her salary could barely feed us; my three brothers and I never had good clothes to wear and our shoes were always torn. (Having new shoes was one of my dreams that never came true.) When the Taliban entered Kabul, they banned women from working and girls from studying. I, who once dreamed of becoming a doctor, was confined to the house. I was in the sixth grade. Click here to read more (external link).