Month: October 2025

Education. Work. Freedom. These three words were carved in large letters in English and Dari into the outside wall of a family compound in the Wakhan. The women living here had their education stopped short; their brothers continue studying. Determined, they have found ways to keep learning, and to keep teaching, but there’s an anger inside which is turning to sadness and despondency the longer that the Taliban keep girls out of high schools and universities. The world has looked away, leaving these women alone.

A small number of women are still working paid jobs in Afghanistan, but usually behind closed doors. In some cases, these are official jobs, like the woman at the border who physically examines female arrivals to ensure they don’t have anything illicit hidden about their person. More often, women are working in the private sector, for example running a restaurant catering to families in Kunduz. These women are a small minatory, however: many more need and want to be working, to support their families and have financial independence.

If you google the Wakhan Corridor, you’ll see striking portraits of Kyrgyz women and girls in their traditional, vibrant red attire. Road building to the Little Pamir has enabled the Taliban to reach the Kyrgyz communities around Bozai Gumbaz and Chaqmaqtin, and they’ve imported their extreme brand of Sunnism. Young Kyrgyz men have been sent to madrassas in Kunduz and returned radicalised; they now pressure their mothers and sisters to veil their faces or wear a burkha, even though it’s not compatible with the demands of herding livestock. Far fewer Kyrgyz women were visible outside than when I last visited them a decade ago, and most are no longer willing to have their photograph taken.

Foreign women in Afghanistan are treated as a third sex. It is not the only place in the world where this happens, but we acknowledge our privileged position. We were able to enter the women’s quarters of homes, to sit and talk with women in their kitchens and courtyards, and to play with the children. At the same time, we could travel across the country with men who were neither our husbands nor blood relatives. We could wear our own clothes, be visible in public spaces, and continue largely unhindered with our work. We were allowed into the Blue Mosque complex in Mazar-i Sharif. These rights are not afforded to our Afghan sisters.

On our final afternoon in Afghanistan, we visited the tomb of Rabia Balkhi. It is beside the Green Mosque in the ancient city of Balkh, in what is perhaps the only park in Afghanistan where women are still allowed to sit, wander, and enjoy themselves. Rabia is a national heroine because she was the first woman to write poetry in Persian. This was in the 10th century. She was highly educated, independent, and passionate in her love life as well as her creative output. Some say that Rabia is a proto-feminist; but however we define her, 1,000 years after her death, we are still reading her poetry and women in Afghanistan and beyond its borders still find inspiration and hope in her story.

With financial support from Maximum Exposure, we will be helping some women we met during the Oxus Expedition access educational opportunities online and in universities outside Afghanistan. This includes using our network to arrange admissions, visas, and scholarships. The details of this will remain confidential to protect the individuals involved and their families, but if you would like to help, please get in touch.

Valley D was northeast of our camp, only partially in view as the river bends almost 90 degrees, disappearing from view behind a peak. The stream weaves its way back and forth across the valley floor in a criss-cross of small waterways, and whatever the time of day, it looks silver and majestic. We rode comfortably for the first few hours, cautiously optimistic that today would be a day of revelation, even though we were unsure exactly what the source we were looking for might look like.

One clue that the source could well be in Valley D was a 2016 report from Christine Fischer and Kristina Kunze, identifying a snow field towards the end of the valley, close to the ridge that is the Afghan-Tajik border.  A decade on, though, that glacier or snowfield was gone. The dark mark of the stream bed through which it must have flowed was visible on the valley floor, but it was dry. Now, the water came from a more southerly direction. 

We spotted a small waterfall on the right hand side of the valley. It sprung from a reddish rock wall, not too high but blocking visibility of what was behind it. We rode closer to take a look. Kamila and Ahmad stayed with the horse in what in any circumstances would be an idyllic picnic spot. Salahuddin and I pressed on, noncommittal about how long we might be. 

In spite of the initial rock climb, the terrain in D was more accessible than in A. For a start, it was less steep and claustrophobic, and whenever we surmounted a ridge or rock wall, we could see the next section of river, so didn’t venture so far off course. The rocks underfoot were more stable, too.

As with the glaciers in Valley A, there was a small pool at the foot of this glacier, but in this case it was fed by a roaring glacial stream lined with bubble-shaped icicles. More confident now hiking on ice, and with many more hours of daylight ahead, Salahuddin and I crunched our way up the glacier, following the path of the stream but keeping far enough back to avoid slipping into its metre-deep flume. 

Where is the source of the Oxus? We now had the coordinates and altitude data to compare Chelab Source D against other previously recorded sites in Chelab Valley A and other parts of the Wakhan. This new location, in the middle of what we’ve now called the Ibbotson-Esmaeli Glacier, at the point where sufficient ice is melting to become a stream with a constant flow, the altitude was 5,008m above sea level, higher than the sources in Valley A but lower than sites elsewhere. Measured by the path of the river, though, this location was further from the A/D confluence, and hence also further from the sea than other potential sources, qualifying it to be the source of both the Chelab and the Oxus, when defined by distance. Confident, elated, and very, very sunburnt, we took photographs and made our way down.

Full information about the discovery of this source, including supporting data and analysis, will be published soon in the peer-reviewed journal Asian Affairs.