In 2024, photojournalist Kiana Hayeri and researcher Mélissa Cornet travelled through seven provinces in Afghanistan to interview over 100 women and girls and document their lives under Taliban rule, which, according to Amnesty International, could constitute a possible crime against humanity of gender-based persecution. No Woman’s Land (November 2025, co-published by Raya Editorial, Kiana Hayeri and Melissa Cornet) is the result of this project.
Kiana and Mélissa spoke with more than 100 women and girls barred from going to school and confined to their homes, journalists and activists continuing to fight for their rights, mothers watching history repeat itself for their daughters, and LGBTQI+ individuals whose existence is erased in silence. They documented the Taliban’s systematic dismantling of women’s most fundamental rights: to education, to work, to freedom of movement, to leisure, and even to spaces as ordinary as parks or beauty salons.
The photobook draws on this fieldwork to create an intimate portrait of what women’s daily existence has become in the wake of rights being stripped away. It also provides extensive supplemental material including historical context, archival documentation, and information on the situation of women’s rights in Afghanistan, making it both a record of a critical moment in history and a testament to the resilience and courage of those who live through it.
Since its unveiling, No Woman’s Land has earned multiple international honors, including a World Press Photo Award, two Pictures of the Year International prizes (one for First Place in Issue Reporting Picture Story), and an Amnesty International Media Award.
A photojournalist originally from Tehran, Iran, now based in Toronto, Kiana is currently based in Sarajevo, covering stories from Afghanistan, Syria, the Balkans, and beyond. In 2014, she moved to Kabul, staying for eight years. Her work often explores migration, adolescence, identity, and sexuality in conflict zones.
As a woman’s rights researcher, Mélissa lived and worked in Afghanistan between 2018 and 2024. Prior to the regime change of 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 document the degrading situation of the rights of Afghan women and girls, publishing on the impact of the food crisis on women and girls, on the mental health situation of women, and on women’s economic empowerment programs in a country where they are no longer allowed to study or move without a chaperone.
We had the opportunity to speak with both women about their career paths and the importance of No Woman’s Land today in a world where women’s rights are being heavily restricted in numerous countries, and the vital role that journalism plays in this landscape.
When you first heard about the Taliban doubling down on the restrictions toward women in Afghanistan a few years ago, what kind of emotions or feelings did it evoke in you as a researcher and photojournalist?
Mélissa Cornet: I was then living in Afghanistan, and researching the evolution of the situation for women and girls. After an initial hope that the Taliban had changed, which everyone really wanted to believe, each decision was a shock. Afghan women were the ones not surprised: they knew exactly what awaited them.
Kiana Hayeri: I share the same experience with Melissa. I lived 7 years in Afghanistan before 2021 and leading up to the collapse of the government, I had already witnessed how quickly women’s rights could be negotiated away. What I felt most was grief mixed with anger. Grief for the girls who had grown up believing their futures might look different, and anger because I knew that once the world moved on, these restrictions would become normalized.
How did the idea for ‘No Woman’s Land’ begin, and what was your intention for the book?
Mélissa: At the beginning of the project, we had both spent many years living and working in Afghanistan. combining Kiana’s photography and my research made, and our networks, made a lot of sense given how complicated and nuances and difficult this reportage would be. Personally, this partnership brought so much, and made the project grow through our constant discussions on concepts, visuals, ideas.
Kiana: When we first started working on the project, we wanted to use all the resources and funding we had to create something that would last beyond a year or two. The goal was to document a chapter of history without overthinking what the final form would be. From there, the work grew into exhibitions around the world, a website, and now a book, giving it a more permanent life on a shelf.
How did you conduct the interviews in such a restrictive environment? And how did you find the women and girls willing to speak to you? What kind of safety protocols did you have to follow in order to protect the women you spoke to, as well as protect yourselves as journalists?
Mélissa and Kiana: we both brought different networks of women and organizations to contact. After that, it was both a snowballing, asking women to connect us and vouch for us with other women, since trust was a must to have access to them. The safety of the women and girls we interviewed was crucial, so we had strict protocols in place such as how to contact them, where to meet, how to store the data (split between Kiana and Melissa for example), etc. It was done on a case by case basis. Each interview was the result of a preparation, security discussions, etc.
With the current attacks on news and journalism globally, how can this photobook inform and enlighten people on the atrocities happening to women in Afghanistan right now?
Mélissa: Through photos but also texts, collaborative art and archive images, we try to put things into perspective. Historically: this is not the first time women are instrumentalized by men in power, using them as a symbol of modernity (e.g. banning the hijab) or purity (e.g. forcing them to cover their hair and faces). It’s always about controlling their appearance, their bodies, their education. And contemporarily: look how easy it is to lose your rights- as a woman, as a journalist, as a citizen. Our conclusion is basically: keep your attention on your rights, democracy and freedom of the press.
Kiana: I second Mélissa in believing that this is exactly why a project like this matters. No Woman’s Land exists as a permanent record at a moment when the Taliban are actively trying to erase women from public life, memory, and history.
This book is proof that women existed, that they lived, that they studied, worked, loved, resisted, and endured despite every restriction placed on them. Long after news cycles move on, the book remains. It slows people down and asks them to confront what systematic erasure actually looks like, not as an abstract idea, but as something deeply human and deliberate.
Why are both photojournalism and factual research important in a world where “alternative facts” abound, and news media can shape the narrative however they like regardless of the truth?
Kiana: Because images and research anchor stories in reality and when they are put together, they create accountability. Photography alone can be misinterpreted, and research alone can feel distant. When combined, they make it harder for to be dismissed. In a world where narratives are manipulated, facts matter, but so does emotional truth. Photos make illustrate injustice, and research ensures it cannot be dismissed as anecdotal or exaggerated.
Can you explain the significance of the title, and what women around the world can relate to when they hear/see it?
Mélissa: No Woman’s Land first evoked for me this empty no man’s land between two frontlines, but also evoked the idea that women were pushed out of their own land, that this land is now empty of half of this population. For me, it encompassed the feeling we wanted to communicate.
For people who may not know about the daily impact of stripping away basic human rights from women and girls, what did you witness and hear from the women in your book that is important for us to know?
Mélissa: The most important is actually what you don’t see: the loss of hope that they can have a future (all want to leave their home country to go to a country in which they can study and work), and the loss of a generation of girls who is not going to school or university, and not entering the workforce. It’s a ticking bomb, in a country where women doctors, nurses and midwives are essential to attend to pregnant or sick women: they’re not allowed to be seen by a male doctor.
Kiana: What struck me most was how quickly restrictions seeped into every aspect of life. Women talked about losing not just jobs, but identity and purpose. Small freedoms, like walking alone or choosing clothes, became sources of fear for some. But there was also exhaustion. Not dramatic moments, but the wearing down of hope. That erosion is just as violent as any visible act.
What inspired you about the women and girls you spoke to and documented? What gives you hope from hearing their stories, if at all?
Kiana: What inspired us most about the women and girls we met with was the fact that many of them had no illusions about what was happening to their lives or their futures. They understood, often better than the outside world, the scale of what was being taken from them. And yet they still spoke, still insisted on being seen, even when visibility itself had become dangerous. That insistence was inspiring.
Truth to be told, hope has largely disappeared over the course of this project. When we began, there was still a sense, however fragile, that the situation might shift, that pressure or time could create an opening. That light has faded. The restrictions have deepened, and the world has largely learned to live with them.
What remains is a much smaller, quieter kind of hope. Not hope for systemic change in the near future, but hope rooted in individuals and in small-scale acts.
The belief that listening still matters. That documenting these lives still matters. That even when a system is designed to erase women, there are people who refuse to look away, and women who refuse to disappear. That is what we hold onto.
Order a copy of No Woman’s Land, out now. See more of Kiana Hayeri’s work and follow her on Instagram. See more of Mélissa Cornet’s work on her website and follow her on Instagram.
