I met Zainab Rasouli on a Wednesday evening in October. She had recently arrived in Canada from Afghanistan, via Pakistan, and had found her way to an English conversation class hosted by The Salvation Army in Barrhaven, Ont., a suburb of Ottawa. Aware of the recent events in Afghanistan, my heart rejoiced that Zainab had found refuge in Canada. 

Since the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group, regained power in 2021, I had watched the deterioration of the lives of Afghan women from afar. Where once women and girls were able to go to school, work outside the home and had a bright future, the Taliban had since imposed severe restrictions on women’s rights. 

I WONDERED WHERE HOPE WAS FOR AFGHAN WOMEN AND GIRLS. 

Systematically, the Taliban chipped away at women’s access to education, employment and involvement in society. In March 2022, girls above Grade 6 were told to go home. Later that year, female students were banned from attending university. In May 2022, women were ordered to wear long robes and cover their faces, except the eyes. A nationwide ban on women using gyms and parks followed, along with excluding women from nearly all jobs. Even beauty salons were eventually shuttered. 

And then, in August 2024, laws were passed that not only made it mandatory for women to veil their entire bodies in public, including their full faces, but also forbade them from speaking, singing or reading outside their homes. Women are no longer allowed to leave their homes without a male companion and face severe beatings if they do, and the frequency of child marriage has significantly increased. 

As I watched this unfold, my heart broke for the more than 14 million Afghan women and girls who are so severely oppressed. These women and girls have been forced into the shadows, their voices have been criminalized, and their thoughts, opinions and even their songs have been silenced. 

Feeling helpless, I cried out to God, who reminded me that just as he saw Hagar, abandoned and suffering in the desert (see Genesis 21) he also sees the Afghan women and girls. God will not leave them nor forsake them. 

As I continued to lament this gendered injustice, it made me pause to ensure that I was not taking for granted my privilege to speak in public arenas, to read freely and to sing as I please. I determined that when I stood in the pulpit, read to my children or sang along with the radio, I would do so with intentionality, with a heart of gratitude and with a prayer of petition: Lord, have mercy. 

And yet, I wondered where hope was for Afghan women and girls. 

All of this heartache and heartbreak bubbled just beneath the surface as Zainab and I introduced ourselves. I wondered how much hardship Zainab had experienced before fleeing Afghanistan. What was her story? Where was her hope? 

And then Zainab noticed three words on my shirt, which Salvationists in our territory display below the iconic Red Shield: Giving Hope Today. Her face lit up, and she exclaimed, “This is what we need. For newcomers, everything is very hard, and we need hope.” 

As I’ve come to know Zainab, I have discovered that, despite her difficult journey, she has hope in spades. She is driven to share her story and to use her voice to make a difference in the lives of women who are still oppressed under Taliban control. “History always has been, and always will be, shaped by women,” she recently shared in an email to me, and I believe that her efforts will, indeed, allow her to be a change-agent for the silenced and oppressed women of Afghanistan. 

In asking Zainab what she would like Canadians to know about the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan, she shares: “In Afghanistan, women are being erased due to anti-woman laws. They force us to flee from our own gender and live in constant fear of death. 

“Yet, the women of Afghanistan are hopeful, seeking life and salvation. We, women, are the strong arms of society. We are the bearers and nurturers of humanity. We are women. If women in any corner of the world are silenced and imprisoned as captives, other women from around the globe must unite and become a powerful force to crush misogynistic laws. I want to shout out loud: I am a woman, and we are women! No power can erase us from society!” 

CAPTAIN LAURA VAN SCHAICK is the corps officer at Barrhaven Church in Ottawa, and the divisional secretary for women’s ministries in the Ontario Division. 

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