Afghan activists in Germany: Between freedom, hope and homesickness
Sometimes, when Saina Hamidi looks around her and realises that she is in Germany, she still thinks it is all a dream. Or maybe she still has not woken up from the anaesthetics she was given for her caesarean birth? Her son was one day old when the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan. Saina was lying with him in the hospital in Kabul, exhausted and with the incision from the operation still fresh, while the world around them appeared to be coming to an end.
“I will never forget that day – the worst day of my life.”
In panic, she packed her things, took her child, and tried to get to the airport with her husband. “All the roads were blocked.” She had to remain in Afghanistan and go into hiding. As a counsellor at a women’s rights organisation, the Taliban would be targeting her. What helped her get through that time? Hope, and permanent contact with her colleagues at medica mondiale in Germany. They were working day and night to secure the evacuation of Saina, her colleagues and their families: they found people to check out possible escape routes, they passed on information, and they provided psychological support. Saina still remembers how her German colleagues sent so many messages to her and the other women via their mobile phones. Maintaining a 24-hour telephone presence, they could react with comforting and encouraging words whenever she or another colleague started to panic. In short videos, trauma experts from medica mondiale guided them through meditations. “We felt we were being seen,” Saina recalls.
Going to Germany after four months
After four months, the time had finally come: a departure had been organised, written letters of acceptance from the German government were available thanks to medica mondiale, and Saina had all the necessary documents. She burned everything else, including photos and papers. She could not afford to leave anything behind that would provide evidence of her work or escape route.
“Germany was like a pleasant dream for me: I could be free.”
The 27-year-old is telling us all this two years after the Taliban seized power. She is sitting in a cafe in Frankfurt, without a veil, wearing a blue, patterned coat, and is happy that she can talk to us. About her family who are still in Afghanistan. About her projects in her home country. About her hopes.
Today, Saina is studying with other former Medica Afghanistan colleagues at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences. With the support of medica mondiale, they are all attending further training because their degrees are not recognised in Germany. In Afghanistan, Saina was working to uphold women’s rights. She gave psychological counselling to women who had survived sexualised violence – either from Taliban fighters or within their own family. She worked in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, produced information videos on the topic of sexualised violence, and published a brochure distributed to girls to explain their first period to them.
“I have always fought for women's rights. My dream is to be based in Germany and continue working for women around the world.”
Working together with medica mondiale in Germany
Sitting opposite Saina is Basira Akbarzada. The 27-year-old psychologist also worked at Medica Afghanistan and is now studying the basics of Social Work together with Saina at the University of Frankfurt. Together with colleagues from medica mondiale, both of the women lead workshops aimed at Afghans in Germany. In these workshops, the refugee women work through the fears and trauma they have experienced in recent years.
“Women and girls have always had very limited opportunities in Afghanistan. As a child, I had to ask permission whenever I wanted to leave the house and then be back within strict hours - boys could do whatever they wanted.”
Patriarchal structures characterise society in Afghanistan. Women have to be brave if they want to walk the streets just to go shopping, let alone to consult a female lawyer because they are being beaten at home.
“The day the Taliban came, I was at home. I was on parental leave – my daughter was four months old. From that moment on, everything was different. We could no longer go to work, girls could no longer go to school. We all had to stay home, all the time.”
Although Basira is happy to be safe now, she misses her family and her home. Her sister was a medical student, but she is not allowed to continue her studies, so she has to stay at home. She has depression and has not yet found any opportunity to leave.
Hope for Afghanistan
Basira was also not well after her escape. It was never her dream to leave her homeland.
“For the first few months, I suffered bad depression. I did try to be strong. But I fell asleep every night in tears, dreaming of my family.”
She finally felt better when the university course in Germany started. However, sometimes even attending her studies makes her sad because the women in Afghanistan no longer have this privilege.
“It’s a disaster that an entire generation are not being allowed to learn. Women and girls in Afghanistan are being deprived of their human rights.”
Saina and Basira share the hope that schools and universities will eventually reopen for women and girls. Because just being at home, left alone with their dreams of a better future – that isn’t a life. Until that time comes and the situation in their homeland is safer again, they will continue to speak out on behalf of the Afghans who are being oppressed by the Taliban. Together with other Afghans in exile, they are establishing an organisation to promote education and women’s rights. They want to provide online training courses in order to ensure that women in Afghanistan have access to psychosocial support or legal advice. There are cautious glimmers of hope.
