No Woman’s Land

The 14th edition of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award focuses on the plight of girls and women in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021. This year’s recipients are Iranian-Canadian photographer Kiana Hayeri and French researcher Mélissa Cornet, whose joint reportage project, No Woman’s Land, was completed with the support of the Fondation Carmignac. 

Hayeri has previously won the 2022 Leica Oskar Barnack Award for her series Promises Written on the Ice, Left in the Sun, also produced in Afghanistan. 
Over the course of the past six months, Kiana and Mélissa travelled to seven provinces in Afghanistan to investigate the restrictions imposed on women and girls by the Taliban. According to research by Amnesty International, the current conditions could be classed as a crime against humanity on the strength of gender-based persecution. For their project, the photojournalist duo met with 100 women and girls, who are being forced to stay at home with no access to education; they spoke with female journalists and activists who continue to fight for their rights, with LGBTQI+ individuals, and with mothers who watch in horror as history repeats itself for their daughters.

No Woman’s Land documents how the Taliban – supported by a deeply patriarchal society – has systematically erased women from society by taking away even their most basic rights: to go to school or university, to work, travel, dress as they wish, to go to public baths, parks, or even to the beauty salon.