“It took us decades to rebuild with so much blood and sacrifice,” said award-winning actress and human-rights activist, Leena Alam renowned for her appearances in feminist television shows in Afghanistan. “Watching it all fall to the ground in the blink of an eye is heart-breaking, but the fight must continue, this time with stronger foundations.”

Leena Alam is one of the 50 women who have made it to the BBC’s list of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world for 2021, some of whom appear under pseudonyms and without photos. The list recognises the scope of their bravery and their achievements as they are forced to reset their lives.

When the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in August this year, millions of lives were changed. From the beginning, girls were banned from going to schools and universities, many working women were told not to return to work, and artistes and musicians feared for their lives. Seeing this, many women across Pakistan felt grief and fear of what was going to happen to our neighbours. Just the thought of losing their freedom of choice – and in many cases, mere existence – Afghans crowded the Kabul airport in order to escape what was next.

These women came as a sign of hope in a country racked by decades of war and a dearth of resources. Their resilience was apparent in the remarkable initiatives and measures which helped and continue to help those around them. From doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs to artists, teachers and activists, Afghan women took on various roles in order to help build their country and people from the ground again.

Imagine having to drop everything you’re doing and making a decision to leave your country. For instance, Afghanistan’s first female commercial airline pilot, Mohadese Mirzaee flew the very first flight with an all-female crew earlier this year. When the Taliban entered Kabul, she was already at the airport for a flight that never took off. Instead, she had to fly as a passenger. I wonder what and whom she left behind.

Amid many stories, some really stood out. While Mirzaee was able to fly away, there are many still in the country serving their people in difficult circumstances. A former parliamentarian and a qualified gynaecologist, Dr Roshanak Wardak has provided medical services for women for more than 25 years, even working during the Taliban’s first term in power as the only female doctor in her home province of Maidan Wardak. Dr Mahera is still seeing patients in the gynaecology hospital where she works, but she now has to travel to provide front-line care and consultations to patients in need. She previously worked with survivors of gender-based violence, but this work also stopped when the Taliban came to power. Dr Ruksana is a surgeon who has worked in hostile environments during various periods of fighting, delivering medical assistance to the most vulnerable. She is a volunteer with the National Cancer Control Programme and is currently running a breast-cancer awareness drive.

Whether you are an Afghan or a Pakistani woman, you will find yourself resonating with many of these stories. The list is a good one for that. However, it makes you wonder about the privilege, no matter how small, that some of these women had, which is partly why they survived.

Masouma, a female prosecutor in Afghanistan, worked in the judiciary gathering evidence and building legal cases. She was working for over five years in the attorney general’s office, before she had to go into hiding.

Not only were the women on the front line, there were also women who were thinking of long-term changes. Normally, you wouldn’t care much about climate change in a war-stricken country, but Zuhal Atmar founded Afghanistan’s first waste-paper recycling factory, Gul-i-Mursal. She set up a women-led factory in Kabul in 2016, which created 100 jobs, 30 percent of which have gone to women, from the factory floor to marketing. The factory processes almost 35 tonnes of paper a week, recycling it into toilet paper, which is then sold across the country.

Shamsia Hassani, Afghanistan’s first female graffiti and street artist, brought some colour and hope to Kabul’s abandoned and damaged buildings through her murals portraying women as confident, powerful and ambitious.

For entertainment and sports, there was Nilofar Bayat, the captain of the national wheelchair basketball team and a prominent advocate for women with disabilities, until she had to flee the country. Sahar played for the local football team before she was flown to another country, all the while fearing for her fellow female players back home. Another sportswoman, Fatima Sultani, who wanted to promote mountaineering among Afghan girls, now hopes that women can climb mountains again, inside and outside the country.

Three women were shortlisted from Pakistan: Abia Akram, Laila Haidari, and Malala Yousafzai. Abia Akram has been an activist seeking freedoms for the disabled since 1997. She is the first woman from Pakistan to be nominated as a coordinator for the Commonwealth Young Disabled People’s Forum, and is the founder of the National Forum of Women with Disabilities. She had also campaigned for the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Inclusive Development.

Laila Haidari has helped nearly 6,400 Afghans since 2010, despite taboos concerning drug users with Kabul’s drug rehabilitation centre, Mother Camp. Haidari’s family is originally from Bamyan, but she was born a refugee in Pakistan. A former child bride, married at 12, she is a vocal advocate of women’s rights.

Shamisa Hassani stated, “over the last 15 years, whenever I have been hopeful for my country, things have always changed for the worse. I have no more hope for a brighter Afghanistan – better not to hope than to become hopeless.”

Whether you are an Afghan or a Pakistani woman, you will find yourself resonating with many of these stories. The list is a good one for that. However, it makes you wonder about the privilege, no matter how small, that some of these women had, which is partly why they survived. A woman’s privilege is often limited even in the most progressive societies, but most men get by even in the most fundamentalist ones. It was definitely not easy to achieve what these women did. Many women are dusting themselves off and standing up to fight again. It’s empowering, hopeful like how award-winning poet and writer Lima Aafshid puts it “we can rise like a branch, reaching towards the light in the gloom of the forest.”

The writer is a reporter/sub-editor at   You! magazine