Time.news – Clementina Cantoni looks “in horror” at the return to power of the gods Taliban in Afghanistan, and considers that “not helping the Afghans now, in their hour of greatest need, would be the most shameful betrayal”. In 2005, the expert in international humanitarian law was just over 30 years old when she was kidnapped in Kabul: she had already worked for the NGO for some years Care International. During the 24 days of his imprisonment, he recalls in a testimony sent to the Time.news, the Afghan women to whom he had dedicated his work in previous years, in many cases widows in poverty and without education, demonstrated to ask for his release.
“Surprisingly – he observes – these women took to the streets, some even spoke to the media, demanding my release. Seeing women, who had been silenced and whose fundamental rights had been trampled on for so long, stand up for just one person, privileged as a humanitarian worker, it was for me an incredible lesson in humility and remains as a testimony of all the Afghan women who have sacrificed so much and who now face such a dark and uncertain future “.
“Progress achieved in 20 years canceled”
“Like many former colleagues and friends who worked in Afghanistan – reads the testimony to the Time.news of the jurist, who after the dramatic Afghan experience continued to live and work abroad in the field of cooperation – I looked at the Taliban with horror. regain possession of the country, effectively erasing the hard progress achieved in the last 20 years “.
“I was lucky enough to have lived there between 2002 and 2005, a period that started with great optimism: the extraordinary spectacle of the girls going to school inspired my young and rather naive heart with the belief that anything was possible and the The future of that magical country was bright. I worked with some of the most dispossessed and marginalized women in Kabul: over 10,000 widows, who depended on NGO-funded food distribution to meet their basic needs. I was proud of the gradual progress they have made. we achieved during those three years: providing basic numeracy and literacy skills, developing income-generating opportunities and even finding long-term jobs, enabling some of these women to become self-reliant, and their children to attend school. “
“It was stimulating to see these women gradually emerge from the shadow of the Taliban regime which had denied them the right to work, study or leave the house without a companion – continues the woman’s testimony – Some were more daring and ready to take the plunge. almost immediately, others were deeply traumatized and took longer to adjust to this new found freedom. All, without exception, were extraordinarily courageous. “
“A deep sense of personal failure”
Recalling the commitment of women when she was kidnapped in Kabul, Clementina Cantoni further observes: “It is for this reason that today I feel a deep sense of personal failure. Like many of my former colleagues currently inundated with requests for help from our Afghan friends to leave the country, we are doing what we can but we are mostly powerless unless governments urgently increase access to humanitarian visas for all vulnerable and at-risk Afghans, especially women and girls. “
Cantoni was 32 years old when she was kidnapped in Kabul on the evening of May 16, 2005, only to be released the following June 9. A week later she would be received at the Quirinale by the then head of state Carlo Azeglio Ciampi; according to rumors circulating at the time, the Afghan government, at the time led by Hamid Karzai, had released 4 people who were in prison.
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