Afghan women lawyers on the run face life in limbo abroad

Afghan lawyer Bibi Chaman Hafizi poses for a picture in her apartment in Athens, Greece, October 15, 2021. Picture taken October 15, 2021. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

ATHENS (Reuters) -When the Taliban seized Afghanistan, lawyer Bibi Chaman Hafizi heard the militants were going door to door, hunting for people who worked for the state, so she burned every document in her home and went into hiding. Then she fled the country.

Like dozens more women working in the legal sphere, Hafizi, who handled cases for the Counter Narcotics Justice Centre, was chased out of Afghanistan by the men they had jailed, now freed from prison by the insurgents.