In 1980, Nadia Anjuman Herawi was born in the city of Herat in northwestern Afghanistan. She was one of six children, raised during one of Afghanistan's more recent periods of tumult. In September 1995, the Taliban captured Herat and ousted the then-Governor of the Province, Ismail Khan. With the new Taliban government in power, women had their liberties drastically restrained. A gifted student in her tenth year of schooling, Anjuman now faced a future with no hope for education, as the Taliban shut the schools for girls and denied any instruction to her and her peers.