The 14th edition of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award is dedicated to the condition of women and girls in Afghanistan following the return of the Taliban to power in August 2021. The Award was granted to the reporting project proposed by the duo of Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Kiana Hayeri and French researcher Mélissa Cornet, which was produced over a six-month period with the support of the Foundation Carmignac.
Over the course of the last six months, Kiana and Mélissa traveled to seven provinces in Afghanistan* to investigate the conditions imposed on women and girls by the Taliban, which, according to Amnesty International’s research, could constitute a possible crime against humanity of gender-based persecution. They met with more than 100 women and girls, barred from going to school, forced to stay at home, women journalists and activists continuing to fight for their rights, mothers watching with horror as history repeats itself for their daughters, as well as LGBTQI+ individuals. They documented how the Taliban, allowed by a deeply patriarchal society, have systematically erased women from society, taking away their most basic rights.
The starkest change that Kiana and Mélissa noted since August 2021 was the general loss of hope among women that things might improve for them, as dreams of having an education and becoming members of society were shattered before them, becoming the primary victims of recurring economic and food crises, and a health system that has all but collapsed. At the end of August 2024, the Taliban regime promulgated a new law forcing women to cover their faces with masks and forbidding them to use their voices in public, including singing, reciting, or reading aloud. Kiana and Mélissa used various media to document this difficult situation, including photos, drawings, videos, and artworks created in collaboration with Afghan teenage girls.
Le Réfectoire des Cordeliers
The 14th edition of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award will be organised in Paris at the Réfectoire des Cordeliers. The last vestige of a Franciscan convent built at the beginning of the 16th century, this 700 m² building, now a listed historic monument, was a hotbed of the French Revolution, hosting the lively debates of Danton, Desmoulin and Marat.