Angelina Jolie has finally made her social media debut — and for good reason.
The star joined Instagram on Friday — and broke records as the fastest user to gain 1 million followers — but her first post wasn’t a promotional piece or a traditional selfie. It was pictures of a letter from an Afghan girl.
Jolie said she’s using the powerful tool of the internet for one purpose: “To share the stories and the voices of those across the globe who are fighting for their human rights.”
The current situation in Afghanistan is bleak. As the Taliban take over the country, women and children’s rights are put at risk. The letter Jolie shared was addressed to her by a teenage girl — whose name was blurred out — fearing for her future in Afghanistan.
“Before the Taliban came, we were able to defend our rights freely,” the letter reads. “But when they came, we think all our dreams are gone.”
When the Taliban had first gained control of Afghanistan in the late 1990s, women were stripped of their rights to work or recieve an education.
Now, 20 years after the U.S. forces had removed the Taliban from power in 2001, the group is attempting to portray a more lenient regime and claiming women will be allowed to work, AP reported.
The young girl who wrote the letter to Jolie said she worries the Taliban have not changed their ways, despite what some people may say. She predicts that her education will come to a pause, if not a full stop. “We have lost our freedom, and we are imprisoned again,” she said.
“I was on the border of Afghanistan two weeks before 9/11, where I met Afghan refugees who had fled the Taliban. This was 20 years ago,” Jolie, a special envoy for the United Nations Refugee Agency, added in the caption of her post. “It is sickening to watch Afghans being displaced yet again out of the fear and uncertainty that has gripped their country.”
Jolie concluded her post with a call to action, asking others to join her in taking a stand and highlighting undeserved voices: “Like others who are committed, I will not turn away. I will continue to look for ways to help. And I hope you’ll join me.”
