Zainab Ali
ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of Afghan nationals Refugees have been sitting outside the National Press Club (NPC) in Pakistan’s capital city for the last eight months, hoping to get shelter in developed countries, saying they don’t want to return to their country governed by the Taliban.
Women in Afghanistan
Despite the initial promises by the Taliban to give rights to women according to Sharia law, including the right to study and work, the Taliban has systematically excluded women from public and professional fields of life. Women have no political participation in current Afghanistan under the Taliban regime.
Girls are also banned from attending schools above grade 6 and are barred from doing most of the jobs outside the home. In May this year, the Taliban declared that women must cover their faces in public places. Women are banned from travelling without accompanying a male family member.
The Afghan nationals refugees outside National Press Club (NPC) told World Echo that they were insecure under the Taliban government, so they left their country and came to Pakistan.
A female Afghan refugee reflects on her journey
While talking to one of the young female Afghan refugees, she said she would only speak on the condition of anonymity, explaining how she received threats from the Taliban-led Afghan government earlier for one of her interviews. She told World Echo that no official is ready to hear them, and they are not even allowed to visit the Afghan embassy in Islamabad. While narrating the lives in camps in front of the National Press Club, the Afghan refugee said they faced several daily problems due to a lack of facilities.
How are the lives of women in Afghanistan? Responding to this question, another Afghan refugee said anonymously that women have no future in Afghanistan under the Taliban government. “Women are confined to their homes under Taliban-led government in Afghanistan,” She added.
Demands of Afghan Refugees
An Afghan refugee woman named Laila said they are facing several problems daily. She said that we endured the summer and now facing winters here in these camps, living as refugees hoping to get asylum in any country outside Pakistan. As she explained, Pakistan itself is a developing country. But she hopelessly said that there is no ray of hope in our lives.
“Our children cannot go to school, their education is being hampered, and we have no permanent residence; what should we do in such situations? We came here hoping for a better future, thinking that we would go to a developed country from here, but no one was listening to us, and we have been sitting here helpless for the last eight months.”
A woman named Razia said that women and men face many problems in Afghanistan. She said there were no jobs for men, no future for children, and no schools for girls; she asked, “why should we return back to such a country?”
Another 45-year-old Afghan woman with her husband and daughter said they don’t want to return to Afghanistan; they will stay here or in any other country but will not return to their country.
Most of the refugees could not speak Urdu and English, and only a few could talk in Pushto as most of them were Farsi speakers, but they seemed committed to their cause.
After the Taliban took over in August last year, Afghanistan has seen mass migration and illegal crossing of Afghans to neighboring countries. Although there are no more fights in Afghanistan, serious human rights violations are still going on.
