Photojournalism

NO WOMAN'S LAND: An Intimate Look into the Battle for Women’s Rights in Afghanistan

The 14th edition of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award is dedicated to the condition of women and girls in Afghanistan following the return of the Taliban to power in August 2021. The Award was granted to the reporting project proposed by the duo of Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Kiana Hayeri and French researcher Mélissa Cornet, which was produced over a six-month period with the support of the Fondation Carmignac.

The laureates has been oﬃcially announced and their work unveiled at the Visa pour l’Image festival on September 5, 2024.

Jalalabad, Nangarhar, Afghanistan, 12 février 2024.
Une famille, récemment expulsée du Pakistan, s'est temporairement installée dans un quartier de la banlieue de Jalalabad, dans l'est de l'Afghanistan. Des centaines de milliers d'Afghans ont été forcés de quitter le Pakistan à la suite de la répression en cours contre les étrangers illégaux, certains après des décennies de vie au Pakistan. Les femmes et les filles sont les plus touchées par les conséquences du déplacement forcé, avec par exemple des taux élevés de mariages d'enfants. © Kiana Hayeri pour la Fondation Carmignac

Jalalabad, Nangarhar, Afghanistan, 12 février 2024.
Une famille, récemment expulsée du Pakistan, s'est temporairement installée dans un quartier de la banlieue de Jalalabad, dans l'est de l'Afghanistan. Des centaines de milliers d'Afghans ont été forcés de quitter le Pakistan à la suite de la répression en cours contre les étrangers illégaux, certains après des décennies de vie au Pakistan. Les femmes et les filles sont les plus touchées par les conséquences du déplacement forcé, avec par exemple des taux élevés de mariages d'enfants. © Kiana Hayeri pour la Fondation Carmignac

Over the course of the last six months, Kiana and Mélissa travelled to seven provinces in Afghanistan to investigate the conditions imposed on women and girls by the Taliban, which, according to Amnesty International’s research, could constitute a possible crime against humanity of gender-based persecution. They met with more than 100 women and girls, barred from going to school, forced to stay at home, women journalists and activists continuing to ﬁght for their rights, mothers watching with horror as history repeats itself for their daughters, as well as LGBTQI+ individuals. They documented how the Taliban, allowed by a deeply patriarchal society, have systematically erased women from society, taking away their most basic rights: to go to school, to university, to work, to travel, to dress as they wish, to go to public baths, to parks, or even to the beauty salon.

The starkest change that Kiana and Mélissa noted since August 2021 was the general loss of hope among women that things might improve for them, as dreams of having an education and becoming members of society were shattered before them, becoming the primary victims of recurring economic and food crises, and a health system that has all but collapsed. In the words of one women’s rights activist, who has since left the country, seeing no future for herself in Afghanistan: « We have forgotten joy, we don’t know from where any can be found. I’ve lost all motivation. I cry alone, hidden. It’s as if someone has locked me in a room and won’t let me outside. Even food has no taste. »

Kiana and Mélissa used diﬀerent media to document this highly sensitive situation, including photographs, sketches, and videos, but also art created collaboratively with Afghan teenage girls.

From 25 October in Paris at the Réfectoire des Cordeliers, you can discover the NO WOMAN'S LAND exhibition, devoted to this major new report.

The laureates

Kiana Hayeri (b.1988) grew up in Tehran, Iran and moved to Toronto while she was still a teenager. Faced with the challenges of adapting to a new environment, she took up photography as a way of bridging the gap in language and culture. In 2014, a short month before NATO forces pulled out, Kiana moved to Kabul and stayed on for 8 years. Her work often explores complex topics such as migration, adolescence, identity and sexuality in conflict-ridden societies.

In 2020, Kiana received the Tim Hetherington Visionary Award for her proposed project to reveal the dangers of dilettante “hit & run” journalism. Later that year, she was named as the 6th recipient of the James Foley Award for Conflict Reporting. In 2021, Kiana received the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal for her photographic series “Where Prison is Kind of a Freedom,” documenting the lives of Afghan women in Herat Prison. In 2022, Kiana was part of The New York Times reporting team that won The Hal Boyle Award for “The Collapse of Afghanistan” and was shortlisted under International Reporting for the Pulitzer Prize. In the same year, she was also named as the winner of Leica Oskar Barnack Award for her portfolio, “Promises Written On the Ice, Left In the Sun”, an intimate look into the lives of Afghan from all walks of life. In 2024, Kiana published a photobook “When Cages Fly”, was selected in the Joop Swart Masterclass and was selected as laureate of the 14th Carmignac Photojournalism Award with Mélissa Cornet.

Kiana Hayeri is a Senior TED fellow, a National Geographic Explorer grantee and a regular contributor to The New York Times and National Geographic. She is currently based out of Sarajevo, telling stories from Afghanistan, the Balkans and beyond.

Website: www.kianahayeri.com
Instagram: @kianahayeri

Mélissa Cornet is a women’s rights researcher who lived and worked in Afghanistan from January 2018 until after the fall of Kabul. Prior to August 2021, she researched women’s economic empowerment, their involvement in elections, in the peace process, violence against women, among other topics. After the fall in August 2021, Mélissa continued
to travel to a dozen provinces for her research, offering a unique perspective from inside the country on the degrading situation of the rights of Afghan women and girls. Since then, she has continued working on women’s rights under the Taliban, publishing papers on the impact of the food crisis on women and girls, on how to include women in aid delivery, on the mental health situation of women aid workers, and on women’s economic empowerment programs in a country where they are no longer allowed to study or move without a chaperon.

She is a cited expert on the issue of women’s rights in the country, and has been interviewed by media outlets including The Guardian, BBC, VOA, The Times and Frontline, as well as numerous French newspapers. She has appeared on ABC News, MSNBC, France 24, BFM TV, or Arte, and has been a guest speaker for events at the House of Commons and at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

She was named laureate with Kiana Hayeri on the 14th Carmignac Photojournalism Award in 2024.

Website: www.melissacornet.org
Instagram: @melissacrt

The report

Gardi, Ghos district, Nangarhar, Afghanistan, February 13, 2024.
Gardi, Ghos district, Nangarhar, Afghanistan, February 13, 2024. In the absence of school buildings in Gardi Ghos District, classes are set up for students, between two main roads under the sun and on dirt ground. While boys can complete their education all the way to grade 12, classes were held for girls only until grade 6. As of today, girls are only allowed to study until grade 6, and are barred from both high schools and universities. In some districts, locally decided by authorities, girls are barred from school above grade 3. However underground schools set up at homes, mosques or alternative spaces continue educating girls, at a high risk. © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac

Gardi, Ghos district, Nangarhar, Afghanistan, February 13, 2024.
Gardi, Ghos district, Nangarhar, Afghanistan, February 13, 2024. In the absence of school buildings in Gardi Ghos District, classes are set up for students, between two main roads under the sun and on dirt ground. While boys can complete their education all the way to grade 12, classes were held for girls only until grade 6. As of today, girls are only allowed to study until grade 6, and are barred from both high schools and universities. In some districts, locally decided by authorities, girls are barred from school above grade 3. However underground schools set up at homes, mosques or alternative spaces continue educating girls, at a high risk. © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac

Kabul, Kabul, Afghanistan, February 17, 2024.
Un institut privé dans l'ouest de Kaboul où les filles suivent le programme américain en anglais, mais ne peuvent obtenir aucun certificat officiel d'éducation afghan, ni aller à l'université en Afghanistan, fermée aux femmes. C'est un cas rare où l'école a réussi à obtenir l'approbation locale des talibans pour fermer les yeux sur ses activités avec des adolescentes. 700 lycéennes étudient chaque jour dans cet institut sous des mesures de sécurité strictes, tandis que deux gardes armés de la communauté surveillent la porte et que les filles entrent et sortent une par une, laissant leurs sacs à dos à l'entrée. Malgré les attaques de kamikazes survenues avant la prise de pouvoir, l'institut reste plein de filles dont les rêves sont désormais de quitter le pays pour poursuivre leurs études à l'étranger. Malgré les promesses des talibans, les lycées pour filles n'ont jamais rouvert après la chute. À ce jour, les filles ne sont autorisées à étudier que jusqu'à la 6e année et sont interdites de fréquenter les lycées et les universités. Cependant, des écoles clandestines installées dans des maisons, des mosquées ou des espaces alternatifs continuent d'éduquer les filles, au prix d’un risque élevé. © Kiana Hayeri pour Fondation Carmignac

Kabul, Kabul, Afghanistan, February 17, 2024.
Un institut privé dans l'ouest de Kaboul où les filles suivent le programme américain en anglais, mais ne peuvent obtenir aucun certificat officiel d'éducation afghan, ni aller à l'université en Afghanistan, fermée aux femmes. C'est un cas rare où l'école a réussi à obtenir l'approbation locale des talibans pour fermer les yeux sur ses activités avec des adolescentes. 700 lycéennes étudient chaque jour dans cet institut sous des mesures de sécurité strictes, tandis que deux gardes armés de la communauté surveillent la porte et que les filles entrent et sortent une par une, laissant leurs sacs à dos à l'entrée. Malgré les attaques de kamikazes survenues avant la prise de pouvoir, l'institut reste plein de filles dont les rêves sont désormais de quitter le pays pour poursuivre leurs études à l'étranger. Malgré les promesses des talibans, les lycées pour filles n'ont jamais rouvert après la chute. À ce jour, les filles ne sont autorisées à étudier que jusqu'à la 6e année et sont interdites de fréquenter les lycées et les universités. Cependant, des écoles clandestines installées dans des maisons, des mosquées ou des espaces alternatifs continuent d'éduquer les filles, au prix d’un risque élevé. © Kiana Hayeri pour Fondation Carmignac

Kabul, Kabul, Afghanistan, March 2, 2024.
A group of teenage girls celebrate their friend's birthday at her house. Music and dancing have been forbidden by the Taliban but women continue to dance and celebrate in the privacy of their homes and behind the closed doors. © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac

Kabul, Kabul, Afghanistan, March 2, 2024.
A group of teenage girls celebrate their friend's birthday at her house. Music and dancing have been forbidden by the Taliban but women continue to dance and celebrate in the privacy of their homes and behind the closed doors. © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac

Kabul, Kabul, Afghanistan, February 3, 2024.
Girls playing in the snow in western Kabul behind an apartment block, off the main road. Since the takeover, women and girls' rights to move without a male chaperon or to go to parks have been curtailed, and very few opportunities to find joy in their daily lives remain. A snowstorm in a quiet neighbourhood of Kabul western suburb offered such a chance for an hour of playing together. Even then, an eye is always kept on the surroundings, looking for a sign of a Taliban patrol. © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac

Kabul, Kabul, Afghanistan, February 3, 2024.
Girls playing in the snow in western Kabul behind an apartment block, off the main road. Since the takeover, women and girls' rights to move without a male chaperon or to go to parks have been curtailed, and very few opportunities to find joy in their daily lives remain. A snowstorm in a quiet neighbourhood of Kabul western suburb offered such a chance for an hour of playing together. Even then, an eye is always kept on the surroundings, looking for a sign of a Taliban patrol. © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac

Yamit District, Badakhshan, Afghanistan, May 10, 2024.
Kheshroo's daughter and her cousin, both grade 11 students who were put out of school, committed suicide a year before by throwing themselves in the water. The family plays in puddles of water, among troops of yaks, horses and goats, in front of the Wakhan mountains, Wakhan, a region that had never been controlled by the Taliban before 2021. © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac

Yamit District, Badakhshan, Afghanistan, May 10, 2024.
Kheshroo's daughter and her cousin, both grade 11 students who were put out of school, committed suicide a year before by throwing themselves in the water. The family plays in puddles of water, among troops of yaks, horses and goats, in front of the Wakhan mountains, Wakhan, a region that had never been controlled by the Taliban before 2021. © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac

Kaboul, Kaboul, Afghanistan, 29 février 2024.
Des journalistes féminines travaillent dans le bureau d'un média axé sur les femmes. Depuis l'arrivée au pouvoir des talibans en août 2021, le paysage médiatique afghan a été décimé. Selon Reporters sans frontières, dans les trois mois qui ont suivi la prise de pouvoir des talibans, 43 % des médias afghans ont disparu. Depuis, plus des deux tiers des 12 000 journalistes présents dans le pays en 2021 ont quitté la profession. Pour les femmes journalistes, la situation est bien pire : obligées de se couvrir le visage, de voyager avec un chaperon, interdites d'interviewer des officiels, soumises au harcèlement et aux menaces, plus de 80 % d'entre elles ont cessé de travailler entre août 2021 et août 2023, selon Amnesty International. Sans reporters féminines, il devient de plus en plus difficile de rendre compte de la situation des femmes afghanes dans une société où les hommes sont rarement autorisés à les interviewer. Les sujets concernant les droits des femmes sont particulièrement sensibles, et la pression exercée sur les médias et les journalistes a fait de l'autocensure la nouvelle norme pour les reportages. © Kiana Hayeri pour Fondation Carmignac

Kaboul, Kaboul, Afghanistan, 29 février 2024.
Des journalistes féminines travaillent dans le bureau d'un média axé sur les femmes. Depuis l'arrivée au pouvoir des talibans en août 2021, le paysage médiatique afghan a été décimé. Selon Reporters sans frontières, dans les trois mois qui ont suivi la prise de pouvoir des talibans, 43 % des médias afghans ont disparu. Depuis, plus des deux tiers des 12 000 journalistes présents dans le pays en 2021 ont quitté la profession. Pour les femmes journalistes, la situation est bien pire : obligées de se couvrir le visage, de voyager avec un chaperon, interdites d'interviewer des officiels, soumises au harcèlement et aux menaces, plus de 80 % d'entre elles ont cessé de travailler entre août 2021 et août 2023, selon Amnesty International. Sans reporters féminines, il devient de plus en plus difficile de rendre compte de la situation des femmes afghanes dans une société où les hommes sont rarement autorisés à les interviewer. Les sujets concernant les droits des femmes sont particulièrement sensibles, et la pression exercée sur les médias et les journalistes a fait de l'autocensure la nouvelle norme pour les reportages. © Kiana Hayeri pour Fondation Carmignac

Kabul, Kabul, Afghanistan, February 23, 2024.
A group of teenage girls dance at a birthday party of their friend. Music and dancing have been forbidden by the Taliban but women continue to dance and celebrate in the privacy of their homes and behind closed doors. © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac

Kabul, Kabul, Afghanistan, February 23, 2024.
A group of teenage girls dance at a birthday party of their friend. Music and dancing have been forbidden by the Taliban but women continue to dance and celebrate in the privacy of their homes and behind closed doors. © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac

Kabul, Kabul, Afghanistan, February 8, 2024.
Kabul, Kabul, Afghanistan, February 8, 2024. A mother is struggling to provide for her children under dire circumstances. One of her sons suffers from a painful skin condition and seizure attacks but cannot be taken to a doctor due to a lack of funds. Her family burns old fabric or clothes from neighbours for heating. She is also afraid of sending her children out to collect materials because the Taliban have detained her 12-year-old son multiple times, believing him to be a beggar: "I walked all the way to Bagh-e-Bala prison and back it was night, and cold. In the prison, they would get water but no food, and he had his boots but no clothes." The family is facing severe financial difficulties, with five months of overdue rent at 1,500 Afghanis per month (19.50 euros). Her husband, who previously worked in a factory, is now unable to work due to a spine injury."Before the change, things were good, I could send my kids on the street to work, they could bring back some money, and my husband was able to work." Despite the hardships, she refuses to send her children to beg for food, although they sometimes collect plastic to burn for warmth. She dreams of a better future for her daughter and wishes she could provide everything her daughter needs, especially medical care for her leg pains. "We have dignity, I don't send my kids to the neighbours to collect food... Even if we don't have food or anything to eat, we sit still and hungry, but we won't go knock on the neighbour's door to get food." © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac

Kabul, Kabul, Afghanistan, February 8, 2024.
Kabul, Kabul, Afghanistan, February 8, 2024. A mother is struggling to provide for her children under dire circumstances. One of her sons suffers from a painful skin condition and seizure attacks but cannot be taken to a doctor due to a lack of funds. Her family burns old fabric or clothes from neighbours for heating. She is also afraid of sending her children out to collect materials because the Taliban have detained her 12-year-old son multiple times, believing him to be a beggar: "I walked all the way to Bagh-e-Bala prison and back it was night, and cold. In the prison, they would get water but no food, and he had his boots but no clothes." The family is facing severe financial difficulties, with five months of overdue rent at 1,500 Afghanis per month (19.50 euros). Her husband, who previously worked in a factory, is now unable to work due to a spine injury."Before the change, things were good, I could send my kids on the street to work, they could bring back some money, and my husband was able to work." Despite the hardships, she refuses to send her children to beg for food, although they sometimes collect plastic to burn for warmth. She dreams of a better future for her daughter and wishes she could provide everything her daughter needs, especially medical care for her leg pains. "We have dignity, I don't send my kids to the neighbours to collect food... Even if we don't have food or anything to eat, we sit still and hungry, but we won't go knock on the neighbour's door to get food." © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac

THE JURY OF THE 14th EDITION OF THE CARMIGNAC AWARD

Chékéba Hachemi, President and founder - Afghanistan Libre
Zahra Nader, Editor in Chief - Zan Times
Katherine Pomerantz Director of Photography - TIME
Laurent Richard, Director and founder - Forbidden Stories
Fiona Shields, Head of Photography - The Guardian
Kyle Ward, Deputy Secretary General - Amnesty International

Pre-jury

Dimitri Beck, Director of photography - Polka Magazine / Pre-jury representatant lors du jury
Shoair Mavlian, Director - Photographers’ Gallery
Tess Raimbeau, Photo Editor - Libération