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In March 2004, when award-winning photographer Lana Šlezic went on assignment to Afghanistan from her native Canada, she never dreamed she would stay for two years. At the time she believed that since the ousting of the suffocating Taliban in 2001, Afghan women and girls were living under considarably less oppressive conditions. She soon discovered that life for Afghan women was not as she expected and felt compelled to stay and document their story.

With the help of a young female Aghan as her friend and translator, Šlezic photographed women all over the country. Over endless cups of tea in sitting rooms from city to village, she learned that Afghan women are still living in a harrowingly oppressive society where forced marriage, domestic violence, honor killings, and an unpalatable lack of freedom still exist. Even today many are not allowed to leave their houses or go to school, and the burka remains a common sight on the dusty streets of the war-torn country. 

Excerpt from pdnonline.com interview:

In March 2004, Canadian Geographic sent Slezic on a six-week assignment to cover the Canadian military in Afghanistan; she ended up staying two years.

“After the six weeks was up, I had hardly seen anything outside military life,” she explains. “I let everyone know I was staying; I knew a few journalists and started working with them. I moved into a house with other ex-pats and started freelancing, working for NGOs based locally and doing whatever other assignments I could find.”

But it was the lives of Afghan women that intrigued Slezic more than any other subject. The overall assumption that they had been “freed” since the Taliban was lifted in 2001 didn’t match Slezic’s observations. 

“The world declared Afghan women saved and dropped [the issue],” says Slezic, who used a Nikon D100 to capture the series. “I learned quickly that things hadn’t changed at all—or not enough. This project overtook me. I hired a young Afghan woman as my translator and traveled all over the country pursuing stories.”

She shot everything digitally in color and says that with all the organizing and editing, shooting film there would have been almost impossible. “Afghanistan is quite bleak, with browns and earth tones, but the women are almost polar opposite,” she relates. “Once the burka came off, I was always so amazed by the beauty, the cosmetics, the jewelry and incredible femininity.” 

The Afghan women’s stories and images led to a pile of tear sheets in publications like Mother Jones, The British Journal of Photography and National Geographic and make up Forsaken, Slezic’s first book, published by Mets & Schilt in Canada and powerHouse books in the U.S. Published internationally in 2007, Forsaken has garnered honors as one of the best photo books of that year, including PDN’s Photo Annual Best Photo Book category.

Though Slezic is proud of the book, its accolades and the 2008 World Press Award she recently received, her most gratifying outcome from Afghanistan has nothing to do with recognition. Farzana, the same young woman she hired as a translator, is now in Canada, studying photography. 

“I’m incredibly proud that Farzana is here because I worked very hard to get her here,” Slezic says. “I think the most important thing for me was the ability to connect and learn about the lives of Afghan women on a very intimate level. It’s all about communicating these stories and doing it in a way that is accessible to people so they look at the photograph and want to know what it’s about.”