Testimony submitted to the Senate record for the late Senator Graham and Senator Shaheen’s potential hearing on Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan.
As I lay in my bed one night trying to sleep, I heard a whisper of crying. My mother spoke on the phone with my uncle’s wife and wept softly, “I know that the Taliban are heartless and cruel and I’m sure if they take power they will close all schools for girls. I worry about my daughters’ destiny.”
The next day at the breakfast table my mother told my father we should send our daughters to another country but my father stayed silent. I knew that was not easy to do. On my way to school I saw women at the bus station, by the bakery, and on the sidewalk talking about what will happen to them in future and I saw my classmates with tears trickling down their faces but didn’t know what to say. That was when I understood that something grim was taking place.
Two days later, news headlines confirmed that the Taliban had captured one province after another, and was sweeping across Afghanistan toward my home in Kabul. I was wearing my school uniform to get ready for school that day when my sister told me that I should not go to school because the Taliban took over Kabul. The next day I walked to school and found its door locked. I could not help but to cry like a bird whose wings are burned into fire.
Before all of this I had been happy. Education in school was my passion and I had passed my exams with flying colors. My world came crashing down when I saw the news that Ashraf Ghani, the president of Afghanistan, fled the country with a huge amount of money and handed the country to the Taliban without a fight.
It has been over 5 years since the Taliban deprived me and all the women in Afghanistan from our right to education. Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls are banned from attending school. In fact, we are imprisoned in our homes because we cannot work, receive an education, or even socialize.
When the dust settled and my new life began, I realized I had two options. First: to surrender to my situation and wait for the next verdict of the Taliban. Second: to build on the current conditions and look for a solution. My choice was and still is, the second. I chose to “never give up”—the hardest option. Despite the Taliban, women in Afghanistan raised their voice and sought help for what they have to suffer everyday. I continued doing my school in a secret school and learned English. We made home study groups and stood against the Taliban’s dictatorship as much as possible. I was crushed when the Taliban banned education for girls, but held onto my hopes and dreams. Education is vital to me, my family, and my community, but that journey has come to a dead-end in my home country.
My destiny is to become educated. Educating myself and my classmates, despite the Taliban’s ruling, has made me realize my purpose: to become a teacher and pass education onto others. I want to teach and while teaching, help women and girls in my community understand their rights and gain a deeper understanding of their role in society. I feel these are the greatest things I want to accomplish, and an opportunity to attend school in countries like the United States is the only way for me to fulfill my dreams. An education in the United States not only enables an Afghan woman to pursue her dreams but helps a family cherish and a society grow. Educated women are the key to a society like Afghanistan in which women have never had a safe opportunity for. I along with all the Afghan women will continue to pursue education at any cost; I believe this is not a cost, this is the investment in our society’s life and it will brighten up our home someday. Take the Afghan Women’s hand who needs global attention now more than ever before. We will change the Future!