Angelina Jolie has officially joined Instagram.
In her debut Aug. 20 post, the 46-year-old actress shared a letter she’d received from a teenage girl in Afghanistan.
“Right now, the people of Afghanistan are losing their ability to communicate on social media and to express themselves freely,” the Oscar winner wrote to her new 1.5 million followers. “So I’ve come on Instagram to share their stories and the voices of those across the globe who are fighting for their basic human rights.”
In the letter, the teen detailed her fears amid the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.
“We all had rights, we was [sic] able to defend our rights freely but when they came, we are all afraid of them, and we think all our dreams are gone,” she wrote. “We think our rights have been violated. We can not go out. Studying and working is too far away. Some people say they Talibans change, but I do not think so because they have a very bad past.”
At the end of the letter, the young woman wrote, “We are imprisoned again.”
In the caption, Jolie, who has served as Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ever since her appointment in 2012, recalled taking a trip to the border of Afghanistan two weeks before 9/11. There, she wrote, she “met Afghan refugees who had fled the Taliban. This was twenty years ago.”
“It is sickening to watch Afghans being displaced yet again out of the fear and uncertainty that has gripped their country,” Jolie continued. “To spend so much time and money, to have blood shed and lives lost only to come to this, is a failure almost impossible to understand. Watching for decades how Afghan refugees—some of the most capable people in the world—are treated like a burden is also sickening. Knowing that if they had the tools and respect, how much they would do for themselves. And meeting so many women and girls who not only wanted an education, but fought for it.”
She then called for her followers to take action. In her bio, Jolie linked to a page on the UNHCR’s website, in which the UN Refugee Agency called for support of the humanitarian response inside Afghanistan “to ensure that all those requiring assistance are not forgotten.”
“Like others who are committed, I will not turn away,” she concluded. “I will continue to look for ways to help. And I hope you’ll join me.”
