A young Afghan woman has told the story of her escape from a forced marriage in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where girls' education remains banned and women face systematic oppression. Told she would be married off, she made the desperate decision to get in a taxi and flee, beginning a perilous journey away from everything she had known. The account illuminates the impossible choices facing women and girls under Taliban rule, where the prohibition on female education beyond primary school has left millions without prospects and increasingly vulnerable to early and forced marriage. Taliban spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat indicated that religious scholars have issues with the safety of girls travelling to school, the justification used to maintain the education ban. When pressed on whether the ban would be lifted, Fitrat offered only that the leadership is awaiting a decision, language that observers say has been used repeatedly to defer the issue indefinitely. International pressure, including from Muslim-majority countries, has failed to shift the Taliban's position on girls' education since they retook power in 2021. The United Nations has described the Taliban's treatment of women as gender apartheid, with systematic exclusion from education, employment, and public life. The personal story of this young woman's flight represents the individual human cost of policies that have affected an estimated three million girls who have been denied secondary education. Aid organisations report increasing numbers of families arranging early marriages for daughters they can no longer educate or see a future for.