u/acreativesheep

This is a story about what happens when you are stateless and powerless—the daily humiliations, the endless waiting, the impossible choices, the dependence on strangers, the danger in every official encounter, the high price of survival, the struggle for dignity.

Darya grew up in Afghanistan, became an artist, and eventually had to burn everything she had made — on a rooftop in Kabul — when the Taliban returned to power. Creating art had become a crime.

She made it out. Most of the women she knows did not.

Today, from Canada, Darya runs online art therapy sessions for women still living inside Afghanistan. In this conversation with Tahir Shah, she talks about her journey from refugee life in Pakistan to Kabul, the reality of women's lives under Taliban rule today, what it cost her to leave, and what it means to stay connected — however tenuously — with the women she works with.

At the heart of it is a simple truth: for Afghan women, internet access is not a convenience. It is a lifeline.

Cat Parenti is a woman with an engaging story to tell; in fact, she has more than one story that outlines her incredible life and illustrates why she was named one of this podcast’s most empowering women.

The first story, which later became the title of her book, is about how she made her way From Brooklyn to Kabul (Afghanistan.) A subplot of that account is her romance, and how she met a man named Jamal, of Noble breeding and knew in an instant that they had a past life love connection, and a destiny to fulfill. Another side of her story is when she became a counter spy for the mujahideen, the Afghan resistance during the days of the Soviet War in Afghanistan (1978 to 90). She travelled back and forth from the US to Pakistan and then climbed the Hindu Kush mountains into Afghanistan every 6 months.

This June, in the heart of London, the voices of Afghan women and girls take centre stage. 

As a simple act to mark Refugee Week 2026, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the United Kingdom invites the public to visit our free open-air installation hosted at Southwark Cathedral Churchyard, highlighting the resilience and courage of Afghan women. 

The extraordinary account of The New York Times‘s effort to save hundreds of lives during the 2019 Afghanistan evacuation, highlighting four exceptional young women who, having escaped the fate of their fellow countrywomen back home, now face the challenges of forging a new life in a new land, a new language, and a new culture.