Thank you for your question. It's a very important question you have asked me, regarding the Hazara women in Afghanistan at the moment. Hazara girls, like every other girl there right now, are bound to their homes. They cannot go anywhere. Specifically for Hazara girls, it's very much harder, as they're at risk of being kidnapped and raped for their facial features, for the way they dress and for the way they present themselves in society.
I can give you some examples. When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, a lot of these women and girls and their families tried to escape across the border to Pakistan. When they were at the border in Pakistan, I was in direct contact with them. We were getting emails, and we were trying to help these people and evacuate them from the border. Unfortunately, the witnesses were telling me that the Taliban were keeping the Hazara women and Hazara people at the border. They were not allowing them to cross the border. Even when the women were wearing burkas, if they had a child who had the facial features of a Hazara, the Taliban would say, “They're Hazara. Stop them”, so they were not able to escape the country. They had to remain inside the country. It's really hard to keep the women safe. When they tried to escape the country, they were easily recognized by the Taliban. They are more at risk at this time.
Right now the extremists who are in power are not doing a lot of stuff in the country. They're waiting for the international community to recognize them as a government. My fear is that if they are recognized once, they will start attacking Hazaras. They could very easily start attacking women, kidnapping them and raping them. This is my very big fear at the moment inside Afghanistan for Hazara women.