The heartbreaking testimony of Afghan women in exile

I have never been to Afghanistan. I do not speak Dari, nor Pasto, the two official languages ​​of the country. I am a reporter. A man who produces reports for television.

What am I doing this rainy Wednesday morning in January at an association for Afghan refugee women in Athens?

I had proposed the story to my managers a few weeks earlier, after reading in an article that the Greek capital had become the unexpected European epicenter for the reception of Afghan women fleeing the country after the Taliban abruptly came to power in August 2021.

I had read that almost all of these women were judges, lawyers, journalists, human rights defenders. His evacuation had been organized through different international aid programs, which also cover his accommodation costs and basic needs.

We contacted one of the associative centers that temporarily shelter all these women. The center is called “Melissa”, “Beehive” in Greek. Afghan women come here for legal advice, education, psychological support, social contacts and companionship.

So here I am, in downtown Melissa, in a nondescript neighborhood in Athens. Inside, colorful walls display all kinds of drawings of women and photographs of refugee families. As soon as I arrive, I am invited into a kind of bright room with sweets and tangerines arranged on a square table. Several women are waiting for me, willing to share their stories of loss with me.

Loss of family and friends. Loss of jobs, wages, independence and self-esteem. They were all forced to hide. They are all still shocked by their experiences.

I listen to them all day.

Hasina, one of the 1,300 judges in the country, explains to me how the Taliban freed the very criminals she herself had tried and convicted. “They were looking for revenge,” he tells me. “I couldn’t leave the house. They could kill me, or kill my children. Or kidnap them.”

Homa Ahmadi, a former member of the Afghan Parliament, had to go into hiding for 5 weeks. He tells me that no country should recognize the Taliban regime until they form “an inclusive government that guarantees children’s rights, women’s freedoms and their right to work.”

Nilofar, 26, fled Afghanistan with her two children; The youngest is only 8 months old. She has a degree in Law and Political Science and worked as a journalist. “Women first had to fight against fathers and brothers in traditional society to be able to dress as we wanted, wear veils and scarves according to our own criteria. And in the last 20 years we had achieved it,” she explains. “Then when the Taliban came to power, we lost everything. I had dreams for myself, my children, the people. It all vanished overnight.”

Fariba -fictitious name- was also a judge, but she does not want to talk about the past; too painful. He prefers to show me one of the few belongings he brought back from exile: a traditional cotton dress. “This dress shows the identity of all Afghan women,” she tells me sheepishly. “Each country has its own symbols. In Afghanistan, behind the flag and language, the only thing that represents women is this dress.”

For almost all of these women, Greece will simply be a transit country; some have already received offers of asylum in Canada or Spain; another dream of going to Germany.

“The idea behind this initiative was to be able to offer them a safe space so that they can connect with the work they did when they were in Afghanistan. And for them to reflect on how they can help their country again in the future. We also wanted to avoid atomization, fragmentation that every diaspora entails,” explains Nadina Christopoulou, the director and co-founder of the Melissa Center.

“We are talking about politicians, journalists, judges, lawyers, human rights defenders… many people may think that these efforts are directed only at an elite, a minority of women living in Afghanistan,” she commented.

“I wouldn’t see them as an elite. We selected these women based on the roles and social commitments and activism they played in their country, and that led them to the risky situations they found themselves in. Even now they are still trying stay active, be helpful and stay committed to your ideals,” she replies.

“Can you give us some examples?” I ask her.

“A week after their arrival, some of them went to the Democratic Forum in Athens. And there they talked about how intense it was for them to be here intervening in a discussion about the collapse of democracy in Afghanistan, the democracy that they themselves had contributed to much effort to build, in the country that gave birth to the very idea of ​​democracy”, concludes Nadina

About a hundred of these women have applied for asylum in Greece. Your demands are being studied.

But I can’t help but think of the hundreds of other Afghan asylum seekers scattered in camps across the country, who won’t have the same opportunities.

In recent months, Greece has consistently increased security and surveillance of its land and sea borders with Turkey, the main entry route for nearly all Afghan migrants.

A two-speed policy openly undertaken by the Greek government, its Secretary General for Migration Policy tells me, whom I interview in the artistic inner courtyard of the headquarters of the Greek Ministry of Immigration.

“For the last two years, or two and a half years, Greece has followed a strict but, from our point of view, fair migration policy,” says Patroklos Georgiadis. “We have tightened the rules, within the framework of the directives and regulations of the European Union. But this does not mean that we have forgotten the humanitarian point of view.”

Every woman I talk to in Athens tells me it’s time to look to the future.

Khatera offers to go for a walk in a central garden in the capital of Athens. I film her with her children, as she shows them the animals at a small local zoo, and they watch ducks and swans in a pond.

Khatera is a journalist; worked in an international organization. He arrived in Greece with his children and his mother, also a human rights activist persecuted by the Taliban.

“I will go to Canada. I will strengthen my education, my experience, my knowledge there. And I will return to Afghanistan stronger than when I left, and I will work there for my people,” he concludes.

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