The day Setara, a young woman in Badakhshan Province in northeastern Afghanistan, passed the university entrance exam was the day she believed her life would begin. Instead, it ended in a poppy field.
Once dreaming of becoming a teacher, the young woman from Badakhshan, whose name has been changed in this story to protect her identity, now spends her days bent over poppy plants, collecting raw opium for local traffickers. It is not a life she chose, she said, but one she was pushed into after the Taliban banned higher education for women and barred them from most forms of work.
“If the schools had stayed open, I would be graduating from university now,” she said. “Instead, I’m working in the poppy fields. We know it’s wrong. We feel ashamed. But we have to survive.”
Setara is one of many women and young people in northeastern Afghanistan who have turned to opium harvesting out of economic desperation. With limited job opportunities, widespread poverty, and few alternatives, poppy cultivation — though banned by the Taliban — remains one of the only viable sources of income.
In Badakhshan, a historically remote and mountainous province, poppy farming has long been a lifeline. But in recent months, tensions have soared. Residents have clashed repeatedly with Taliban forces attempting to destroy their crops. Locals say the enforcement of the ban has been uneven, aggressive, and at times deadly.
In one recent confrontation in the Khash district, 15 people were reportedly killed and more than 60 injured when Taliban fighters opened fire on farmers protesting the eradication of their fields. The Taliban governor of the province later confirmed the incident in an interview with the BBC, though the group has not issued an official statement.
Many in the province say the Taliban’s campaign has deepened distrust, as communities see no real alternative being offered.
“They came with guns, not with seeds,” said one farmer, whose fields were razed earlier this year. “They say this is a religious order. But religion doesn’t feed our children.”
Despite a public pledge to ban narcotics, the Taliban’s ban has proven difficult to enforce, especially in provinces like Badakhshan where economic hardship is widespread and state infrastructure is limited.
Farmers interviewed by Amu said they would stop growing poppy if given viable alternatives — access to fertilizer, seeds, and markets for wheat or barley. But for now, such support is rare or nonexistent.
“We don’t grow opium because we want to,” said one farmer. “We grow it because we must. It pays enough to keep our families alive.”
For women like Setara, the collapse of educational opportunities has meant not just a loss of future—but a direct push into illicit labor.
“The economic benefit is real,” she admitted. “But the damage is worse. Opium destroys people—especially young men in our community. Their bodies, their minds, their families. We know this. Still, we are forced into it.”
Setara’s plea is not for forgiveness, but for alternatives.
“If the Taliban want to end poppy farming, they need to give us something else. Fertilizer. Wheat. Jobs. And if the world cares, they need to open schools again—for everyone.”
As Afghanistan’s new rulers continue to tout their anti-narcotics campaign in international forums, the ground reality in places like Badakhshan paints a more painful and complex picture: one where poverty trumps ideology, and a generation raised with ambition now finds itself bent under the weight of the harvest.
