Women in Afghanistan are fighting an unequal war. We need your support | Zahra Joya

The Taliban have barred us from the workplace, cut our access to healthcare and closed schools to us. Must we struggle alone?

We suddenly all woke in the middle of the night. A piercing cry came from the corner of our room. It was my teenage sister, sobbing in the little room we rent in London. She always used to sleep in the same bed as my mother - until the fall of Kabul.

She wasn't used to sleeping alone. That night, early in spring, she sobbed until dawn. Her pain was obvious: separation from my mother and a longing that became chronically painful for us all. Since our exile, I have been playing the role of mother, thousands of miles from our parents.