Source: http://gulfnews.com/news/world/afghanistan/taliban-must-respect-women-s-rights-sarah-ahmadi-1.1271068
We often hear politicians, academics and
“experts” talking about women’s rights in Afghanistan. But the most
authentic voices are of the Afghan women themselves. A woman with a
truly compelling and moving story is Sarah Ahmadi, a former TV presenter
and producer in Afghanistan who had to flee her country when the
Taliban made it too dangerous to for her to stay there. She now lives in
the northeast of England, where with great courage and perseverance she
has rebuilt her life to the point where she now helps others who flee
to the United Kingdom to escape the desperate circumstances in their
home countries.
Ahmadi, who started in radio
at age 8 as a presenter on a children’s programme in her home city of
Kabul, went on after university to become a well known face on national
Afghan TV. For sixteen years all went well with her life and career
until the early 1990s, when the Mujahideen took over Kabul. They moved
immediately to destroy the TV station and Ahmadi, like her terrified
colleagues, stayed at home fearing her safety. Then a Mujahideen missile
hit her apartment block; she and her husband raced to help their
upstairs neighbour, a doctor.
“My hands and my husband’s
hands were covered with his blood,” she recalled. They rushed him to
hospital but he died leaving a widow and two young children. “I will
never forget that — he died in front of my eyes,” she said.
Ahmadi and her husband,
sitting shell-shocked with their small children in their partially
destroyed home, realised that it was no longer safe to remain in Kabul.
They couldn’t even find food in the city. “My husband used to go out and
stand in a queue for two hours just to buy bread — there was nothing
else to buy,” she recalled. “We didn’t eat for days — we just gave the
bread to our children,” she added.
They decided to try and leave
Afghanistan. They hired a bus and headed north with four other
families; the intention was to go to Tajikistan and make their way to
Russia and then onwards to Europe. But when they got to Baghlan Province
in the north-east, they were recognised by the authorities in the north
— as Ahmadi was a well-know TV personality. They were persuaded to stay
by Said Mansoor Nadiri, a prominent leader in the province, who offered
them a place to live and provided for their needs. Ahmadi had the
opportunity to continue her work as a TV producer and presenter. She
presented a programme on local TV channel, Pulikhomri TV, called
“Woman”, which proved very popular.
“Baghlan was a small province
and people welcomed me as a well known national TV presenter. It was a
very positive experience,” she remembered.
Then, six
years later, fate caught up with her family again: the Taliban captured
the capital of Baghlan. They set about imposing their ruthless control
over society. “They burnt down the TV station and we stayed at home for
four days. We were scared — day by day and street by street came the
Taliban,” she recalled. “All men were ordered to grow beards; women were
not allowed to go to school; TV was banned,” she said. Once again the
family was in jeopardy and had to find a way out.
Ahmadi was especially
vulnerable as she was a strong advocate for education of women. “If I
had stayed there they would have killed me,” she said.
In desperation, her husband
turned to people smugglers. The family had savings of about $18,000
(Dh66,060), which they kept at home because there were no banks. But
they didn’t have enough money to get all family members out of the
country. So they decided that Ahmadi would try to get out, to be
followed by her husband and three children.
“I covered myself in a burqa
and with nothing but the clothes on my back, said goodbye to my family
and stepped into a car driven by two male smugglers. I had been told
beforehand not to ask them any questions. They warned me that if I asked
questions, they would kill me,” she said.
After a long and exhausting
journey, she ended up stepping out of a lorry outside the Home Office in
London. When she got out, she was told that she was on her own and must
find her own way. She was pointed towards the door and she went into
the Home Office building and stood with hundreds of other people seeking
help. She knew no English and signalled her plight through sign
language.
Ahmadi was then interviewed
through an interpreter and put up in a hotel in Croydon, South London.
“When I arrived for a few days I couldn’t eat and I cried and cried and
cried. I missed my children — my youngest child was just two years old,”
she recalled.
She stayed at the hotel until
she was told that she and 25 other women were to be sent to Sunderland
in the North-East of the country. She had hoped to stay in London where
she thought there would be more work opportunities but was told that
this was not possible. So on February 28, 2002, she found herself on a
bus making her way to Sunderland where six weeks later she received a
visa and began to rebuild her life.
She said that she was lucky
as some people wait years to have their cases resolved and some of the
women who travelled with her to Sunderland were deported.
Ahmadi’s courage is truly
inspirational. She went to a nearby church where she met an Iranian man
who advised her about the steps she should take to apply for housing and
government allowances. She enrolled in college and focused on learning
English and also attended courses to gain computer skills.
She took a job washing dishes
in a pizza shop so that she could be self-sufficient. As her English
improved she attended university, and through her efforts found a new
job using her newly acquired skills. Incredibly, she also found the
energy to set up in 2004 an organisation, the Afghan British
Association, to help other immigrants.
Her husband had fled with the
children to Peshawar, Pakistan. “I sent money to support them, but for
six months I had no communication with them because it was impossible,”
she said.
Then in 2007 she founded
United Community Action, a not-for-profit organisation supported by
Sunderland Council, which works on behalf of asylum seekers. The family
was finally reunited in the UK in 2011. Her children are doing well in
their studies in the UK and her husband has found employment.
From her direct experience,
Ahmadi has a clear message. No government should negotiate with the
Taliban until they have secured from the Taliban leadership unequivocal
agreements to respect the rights of women with regard to their access to
education and work and other civil and personal freedoms.
“Their policy is no work, no
study, no classes, all the people just going to study in the mosques to
read the Quran, all men with beards, all women covered with burqas and
not allowed to go out without their husbands or brothers,” she said. “If
governments want to negotiate with the Taliban they should ask the
Taliban to change their policies and then we will see,” she said.
Ahmadi also sees it as
imperative that a contingent of NATO forces should remain in Afghanistan
after the drawdown of troops next year to provide a measure of security
to people who fear that hard won rights could easily be trampled
underfoot under the new regime.
She said that for women the
situation has improved in Afghanistan in recent years but these gains
could very easily be reversed.
– Denise Marray is an independent writer based in London
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