When the Taliban recently cut off the Internet and phone networks across Afghanistan, millions of women and girls were silenced. For those with connectivity, the blackout severed their last link to the outside world - a fragile connection that had kept education, work, and hope alive.
Many women in Afghanistan still lack access to the Internet, a basic phone, or the literacy to use digital tools. For those that do, that connection is a rare lifeline to life-saving services and the outside world.
For now, access has largely been restored. But the message was clear: in Afghanistan, this valuable gateway to learning, expression, and services for women and girls can be shut down at any moment.
Afghan women are already banned from secondary and higher education, from most forms of work, and public spaces such as parks, gyms, and sports clubs.
Many women are also receiving humanitarian aid, including in earthquake-affected eastern Afghanistan, and among those returning - many forcibly - from Iran and Pakistan.
The digital and phone blackout intensified feelings of stress, isolation and anxiety among women and girls.
