The world was introduced to the Taliban on March 11, 2001 when it was globally reported that the Taliban had destroyed giant Buddha statues built into the sides of the cliffs of Bamian, Afghanistan. On September 11, 2001 the world saw another side of the Taliban’s ideology.
In 2004, Zareen Taj felt urgency for making a trip to her country to explore the lives of survivors of Taliban massacres. The Taliban murdered men and burned homes and bazaars in an attempt to wipe out the population and economic means of the Hazara, an ethnic minority. The photographs in this exhibition are selected from the surviving women Zareen interviewed and present a unique window into the stories of many Afghan women.