Lynne O’Donnell

In the weeks since I relocated from London to Melbourne, I suspect my reputation among those who know me underwent a quiet but decisive shift: from seasoned, sardonic war correspondent to something closer to a deranged cat obsessive. My 14-year-old Birman, Aero, has acquired a global following. I have woken up to messages from London, Kabul, Washington, Islamabad, Paris – people asking, not unreasonably, whether she is still alive. She very nearly wasn’t. Aero arrived in Melbourne after a month in transit blind, dehydrated, unable to walk and carrying an untreated infection Aero arrived in Melbourne after a month in transit blind, dehydrated, unable to walk and carrying an untreated infection. She had lost 20 per cent of her body weight.

For more than three years, democratic governments have been trying to pretend that Afghanistan does not exist. The embarrassed silence has given the Taliban drugs and terror cartel a free hand to transform Afghanistan into the world centre of jihad, while locking up women, and robbing western taxpayers of billions of dollars in aid and cash. After President Joe Biden’s disastrous 2021 withdrawal, following President Donald Trump’s 2020 surrender deal with the Taliban, Afghanistan became the country no one wanted to talk about.

It has been almost three years since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan. In that time, women have become prisoners in their own homes and targets of violence if they venture outdoors alone.  Now, the United Nations is investigating reports of rape, gang rape, sex slavery and forced abortions of women held in Taliban jails.  Women’s rights advocates have long warned that women and girls are enduring appalling abuses under the Taliban’s autarkic regime The reports, first published in a respected Afghan media outlet, are the first detailed accounts of women being systematically abused for sex by Taliban operatives and commanders.

When the thousands of international athletes march proudly behind their national flags along the banks of the River Seine in Paris to open the Olympic Games in a few months, the country that usually leads the parade, behind the host, will be absent. Afghanistan, first in the alphabetical order of nations, has been captured by the Taliban, an extreme Islamist movement that does not allow women to play sport. It also bans girls from high school and university, women from work, and all females from walking in public parks, even if they do leave their homes fully-covered and accompanied by a mandatory male relative.