Athifa: An Exiled Advocate of Human Rights

My name is Athifa Wathanyar. I come from a land of tragedy called Afghanistan, where millions of girls and women don’t have a voice or identity. They have been imprisoned by a terrorist group by the name of the Taliban.

Let me tell a story of mine. When I was a little girl, I wished I was born a boy, because in a very traditional and religious society like Afghanistan, the boys have more value than the girls in their families. My mom had four daughters, but didn’t have a son yet, and she was sad. I wanted to see a smile on her face. Every night when I went to sleep, I would wish that something magical would happen, and my body would change to a boy. But when my body started to change from puberty, I became disappointed that my dream did not come true. I think I lost my childhood.

Later though, I thought about my abilities and I told myself, “Why shouldn’t I empower myself and prove to everyone that girls also have abilities like boys have.” Then I started studying very hard because I realized that the only way to be empowered is to be educated. When I was in high school, I understood and believed that Afghan girls need to be empowered, so I strongly decided to be a teacher, to not only teach girls, but also to inspire and empower them.

I got married when I was 16. Thankfully my husband was very supportive, and he encouraged me to continue my high school studies. During this time, I also worked as a part-time teacher at a primary school, and I took care of my mother-in-law who was old and paralyzed on one side of her body, and I took care of my sick 75 year old father-in-law, and I was doing all the responsibilities at home because my husband was studying at the university in Kabul. Meanwhile we were living in Ghazni. Despite all of my responsibilities, I was still able to get the top scores in my school. I knew how important education was.

After high school, I passed the Kankor exam with a good score and I enrolled at Kabul University in the mathematics department. I studied very hard and got the top position in my class among more than 500 male and female students (I remember that the top three were all girls☺). My family and my husband were so proud of me. I was in my third year of university when I got pregnant, and when I graduated, my son was six months old.

The next year I started working as a math teacher at the Sayed al-Shuhada school. It was a big high school for girls in a very poor area on the west side of Kabul City, where 99 percent of the people are Hazara. I found the girls so interested in studying. Despite all the poverty and their responsibilities at home like having to cook and clean, and weave carpets, they were working hard to get ready to enter the public universities. I was not only teaching them math, but also teaching them how to be strong and hard working. In those 7 years of my teaching, about 3,200 girls graduated from our high school. Most of the girls later graduated from universities, got jobs, and got empowered, and my colleagues and I were so proud of them.

Despite the Taliban war in Afghanistan and all the insecurities, we were hoping to continue and empower our female students. Then on May 8th, 2021, everything changed. Three huge and horrific explosions took place in front of our school gate.

On a Ramadan Day, when everyone was hungry and thirsty, about 350 girls were killed or injured. I was among the explosions, and I couldn’t believe that the Taliban could do such a terrible crime against humanity, but they did. I was in shock from seeing the burnt and bloody bodies that had fallen among the dust and debris.

WHY three horrific explosions at a girls’school? Three reasons:

1) The students were girls that were learning their abcs, learning to read and write, and do math. 2) All of them were Hazara.
3) All of them were Shia.

Hazara is an ethnic group, one of the four main ethnic groups in Afghanistan. For more than 140 years, the Hazara have been facing persecution and genocide.

In those moments, I believed that I would not survive. I thought about my children, and I felt regret that I didn’t hug and kiss them when I left for the school. And I was very concerned that my husband would come look for me because there were still explosions, and I didn’t want my husband to come and have the both of us get killed. I wanted him alive to take care of the kids. I opened my eyes in a hospital. For 24 hours I was hospitalized. After a week, when my mental status got a little better, I went back to the school, and with my colleagues we went to visit the families of the girls who were killed. We continued teaching the rest of the girls who had survived.

Three months later, on August 15th, 2021, the Taliban came like a horrible storm and destroyed the dreams of millions of girls and women in Afghanistan. My students were stopped from going to school, but I never stopped teaching. I continued teaching English to the 5th and 6th grade girls. I will never forget their innocent and beautiful faces that were shining during the English classes I was teaching. They loved to learn English, and they were very happy to have an English teacher.

I was receiving messages from my high school students. They were asking me when school would reopen for them. I didn’t have any answer. When the Taliban did not reopen schools for girls, I became so angry and disappointed, and that’s when I took to the streets and started protesting.

On a snowy day on the morning of December 16th, 2021, I hugged my husband, and I kissed my children who were still sleeping to have a goodbye with them in case something happened to me. I was not alone. I had my two sisters with me. All the members of our organization, the Afghanistan Women’s Justice Movement, joined together in Shahre Naw, Kabul, and we started the protest. As we expected, the Taliban became so angry and tried to stop us by shooting.

All of us protesting women were full of courage at that moment, and we didn’t know where it came from. We were fighting a terrorist group armed with just our voices, our signs, and our dreams and desires to have an education and a job.

On January 16th, 2022, we went to the streets again to say “No” to mandatory Hijab, and to ask about the fate of the protesting women in Mazar-e-Sharif, who were in the Taliban’s jails for months being tortured, raped, and killed. This time we faced a complete army of the Taliban soldiers with tanks and weapons to stop us. They were filming us as well, so they could recognize our faces and arrest us later separately, as they did.

A week after that protest, Tamana Zaryab was kidnapped from her apartment with four of her sisters, and also Parwana Ibrhimkhil, and these kidnappings continued, but we were still fighting with the Taliban. We started writing slogans on the walls, such as “We women don’t recognize the Taliban as a government.” When we were coming back home from writing on the walls, we were followed by the Taliban, and they found our address. We left our home in the dark of night and went to our relatives’ house, and then to safe houses in Kabul. But we were not safe even in the safe

houses because 40 members of our organization, and their kids, were arrested by the Taliban from a safe house in Kabul.

I asked for help from LNF, the Linda Norgrove Foundation. It’s the Scottish organization that had given me a medical scholarship. I was looking at the scared faces of my kids, and I felt very helpless. Being an activist and a mother at the same time is so difficult. We got hope from LNF’s friend, Inês Fialho Brandao, from Portugal. Inês sponsored my family in Portugal and helped us get humanitarian visas.

But first we needed to get to Pakistan. We found a way to get Pakistani visas and we left. We got to the border of Pakistan late, and the gate was closed, so we had to stay another night in Afghanistan. That night at the border was a dark and very long night. After midnight, there was a violent knocking on our door. Behind the door were Taliban soldiers, and they were yelling at my husband to open the door. My sisters and I put on our hijabs and hid our cellphones and documents. My husband opened the door, and they came inside with their guns on their shoulders and horrible faces, and asked my husband, “Why you want to leave the country? And who are these three women with you?”, and many other questions. We showed them The Quraan and they calmed a little. From a small window of that room, we could see the other side of the border that was Pakistan, and we were wishing to be there. Finally, the next morning we got to Pakistan.

I was out of Afghanistan, the only home I had ever known, the home of my parents, and my other sisters, and my brother, and my friends. Then, after three weeks, I was in Portugal. When we arrived at the Lisbon airport, my daughter asked me, “Mom will the Taliban chase us here as well?” I replied, “No, they are not allowed to come here,” and her eyes sparkled with happiness, and she started kissing my hands. Ines met us at the airport with tears of happiness in her eyes, and she welcomed us to Portugal.

However, my happiness was not complete, because I had to leave my beloved sisters behind in Pakistan, but thankfully they were lucky enough to have support from angels in human form like Laura Deitz and Task Force Nyx, and Richard Brand, and Jenny Adams. My sisters spent a long difficult year in Pakistan, but Laura, Richard, Jenny, and Ines worked together to help my sisters join us in Portugal.

Of course, I am not here just to tell my family’s story. We were lucky enough to receive help and escape. But so many of my fellow activists have been left behind without such help. Many are still in Taliban prisons suffering terribly from torture and rape. They are brutally beaten and humiliated. Sometimes their faces are urinated on. As part of the torture, the Taliban will hit the women’s breasts and genitals, so that if or when they are released, the signs of torture will not be evident. And many women are forced to become sex slaves to the Taliban. If they resist, they are killed. Others are killed for no reason other than that they are women.

In addition, many of the women’s rights activists who made it to countries like Pakistan or Iran are now languishing in limbo. They can’t go back to Afghanistan, and unable to go forward, they are living a life of quiet despair in hiding. Where they first sought refuge, they now face harassment, persecution, hunger, and loneliness. I hope and pray that the world will not forget about these brave women, and all the women and girls who remain in Afghanistan.

CONCLUSION

In the year 1963, the Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail.” He went to Birmingham, in the U.S. state of Alabama because there was injustice there. While there he was arrested. From jail, he wrote, “I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by … because … Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

My dear friend Laura and her colleagues at Task Force Nyx didn’t sit idly by, nor did my dear friends Richard and Jenny. And I believe that all of you are not sitting idly by, or you wouldn’t be here, and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

The purpose of this IMpower conference here in Monaco was to give global investment management leaders an opportunity to network and create new partnerships. Well, I hope that we can also build new partnerships and networks to help the women and girls in Afghanistan, and to help the brave women’s rights activists suffering there and abroad. Afghan women are on the frontlines of the most violent and repressive campaign against women’s rights anywhere in the world today.

But they are strong, resilient, and determined. And they have voices, dreams, and aspirations. And when people of good will, with kind hearts and compassion, link up with other kind souls and organizations like Task Force Nyx and the Linda Norgrove Foundation, and this network of kindness is combined with financial assistance, it becomes amplified, and it makes for a powerful combination.

From all the difficulties I have experienced, I have learned that life isn’t meant to be easy, and it’s even more difficult when you are born in a country like Afghanistan, especially if you are born a girl, and you are Hazara. But if we can be brave enough and have hope and love, and if we can become part of a network of kindness and mutuality, then we can overcome all the difficulties.

Thank you.

Note: Athifa was invited to Monaco to a human rights conference to share her experience of living under Taliban’s control and fleeing Afghanistan through the assistance of British non-governmental organization. She currently lives in the refugee camp of Germany after leaving Portugal. She found a job and raise children with her supporting husband