In this four-minute clip, a disembodied voice asks a child in a dimly lit room: “Are you a man or a woman now?” The child looks terrified – and like she’s trying to be brave. She says she’s 13 years old. But she’s dressed like an Afghan boy: loose pants, a long shirt and a beaded cap.
The undated video was released to social media by Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers in early February. It’s one of many videos of interrogations they’ve circulated. The clips emphasize the group’s power: A Taliban agent is the voice behind the camera, demanding that their subject answer questions. But this video stood out: The agent was interrogating a girl, dressed as a boy.
The clip went viral for what it spotlights about life under the Taliban. Women are banned from working in most professions. Those who do not have male relatives able, or willing, to support them are driven into hunger and poverty.
The Taliban say that this video was shot four years ago — likely not long after they swept to power in August 2021. They did not respond to questions about why they chose to release the video this year. It is not clear what has happened to the young teenager since the video was released.
An ancient practice with new relevance
Girls dressed as boys has been documented for centuries in the patriarchal society of Afghanistan. It even has a term: a girl who disguises her gender is called a bacha posh — literally “dressing like a boy.”
Bacha posh girls have long captured the imaginations of Westerners in Afghanistan. It was addressed in the movie Osama in 2003 and the 2018 Oscar-nominated animation film The Breadwinner, produced by Angelina Jolie. It was the subject of a deep-dive book published in 2014, The Underground Girls of Kabul.
The reason for girls to dress as boys in times long ago may have included a desire to go soldiering. But the practice has had a different relevance in modern-day Afghanistan, through the first period of Taliban rule in the mid-90s, and now — with the group’s restrictions on the freedom of women. Dressing as a boy offers a girl a chance to provide for her family, which may not have any men or boys, or at least, none available for work. Even those who do have men are struggling: the United Nations estimates that nearly 85% per cent of all Afghans are struggling to survive.
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