Five years after the fall of Kabul, Mahbooba Faiz on Afghanistan’s silenced women

Mahbooba Faiz discusses fleeing Afghanistan, her campaign against gender apartheid and her fears for women left behind

The Deirdre O'Shaughnessy Podcast: Five years after Kabul fell, Mahbooba Faiz on Afghanistan’s silenced women

Five years on from the dramatic scenes of desperate people clambering onto planes at Kabul Airport, the Taliban are back in power and Afghanistan’s women have been largely silenced.

No singing, talking or showing their faces in public. No education, no work, and limited access to healthcare in most cases.

A small number of Afghan women travelled to Ireland in the direct aftermath of the US departure, under a specific refugee scheme opened by the Government.

Mahbooba Faiz was a lawyer in Afghanistan. After years of further study, she is now a paralegal with the Cork-based law firm RDJ and has written for the Irish Examiner about the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes in the workplace. She is the founder of the Irish campaign against gender apartheid.

She speaks candidly in today’s episode about leaving Afghanistan, her campaign against gender apartheid, her time in Ireland and her fears for the women she has left behind.