For Mariam Aslami, there has been no sleep or respite in the last 24 hours.
The public officer for the Afghan Australian Women Association has been desperately trying to contact her sister-in-law in Kabul.
"I could not get through. I don't know if they have access to the internet or electricity. I don't know," she told SBS News.
In the conversations from previous days, the anxiety was palpable from loved ones in Kabul.
"For the last few days when I was speaking to the women in the community, they had some opinions, we will do this, we will do that," Ms Aslami said.
"But since yesterday, everyone is just silent."
Based now in Adelaide, Ms Aslami said memories of what life was like for women in Afghanistan 20 years ago is easy to recall.
"Women have had very bad experiences with the Taliban two decades ago," she said.
Under the Taliban's five-year rule until 2001, women were banned from attending school, barred from the workplace and given limited access to healthcare.
Flogging and execution were used to punish those violating its rules, which included a ban on appearing in public without full-body coverings and having to be escorted by a male guardian.
Ms Aslami said there is a very real fear that the progress made in the situation of women will be rolled back.
"At the moment the people who are the most scared and heartbroken are women. They don’t want to go back to the situation two decades ago," she said.
"They have achieved so much and worked so hard to build their career and identities.
"If they (the Taliban) take their rights, their lives will be just nothing.”
The Taliban has sought to change perceptions on its treatment of women, using public statements since February 2019 to say it will allow women to work and attend school - as long as it is in keeping with Islamic and Afghan values.
Women and girls forced to flee
But mean women are unlikely to enjoy the access to work, education and representation in politics that they currently do.
Strides forward have been in the education, work and health spheres.
The and the number of girls in primary education approached 50 per cent.
The life expectancy for women extended nine years to 66 years of age.
Since May, women and girls have been over-represented in the number of people displaced and civilians killed in fighting.
Mariam Aslami is comforted by her son. Source: SBS News/Peta Doherty
Women and girls make up 80 per cent of the 250,000 Afghans forced to flee Taliban violence since May, , UNHCR.
A published last month found women and children also over-represented in the death toll since 1 May - 468 children and 219 women were killed, together representing 46 per cent of the total death toll.
World leaders issued calls for women and girls to be allowed to access education and be in the workplace.
"What we want to see is women and girls being able to access work and education," said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
"These are things that have traditionally not been available to them where there has been governance by
Taliban."
'Deeply worried'
Pakistan-born Nobel laureate Malala Yousufzai, who was shot by the Taliban in 2012 at the age of 15 for advocating for girls' education, also urged protection for women and refugees.
"We watch in complete shock as Taliban takes control of Afghanistan. I am deeply worried about women, minorities and human rights advocates," she said in a message on Twitter.
"Global, regional and local powers must call for an immediate ceasefire, provide urgent humanitarian aid and protect refugees and civilians."
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the Taliban to uphold the rights women and girls.
In a statement, he called for the protection of lives, saying he was "particularly concerned about the future of women and girls, whose hard-won rights must be protected".
