"I write about women who have to struggle throughout their whole lives to claim their most fundamental rights. In their struggle, there is no guarantee to succeed or to get killed."
Are you hearing my voice? This is the voice of a woman from a country which many may not heard of it yet – a country where to be a woman demands a continuous and tireless struggle. [...]
I was only four years old when Taliban captured Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. They even further hardened the already difficult conditions for Afghanistan’s women by programmatically denying their fundamental human rights. During Taliban’s reign in Afghanistan, women were deprived of their rights and access to education, health care, and all other human rights. Taliban eliminated women from public sphere. [...]
My mom, who used to be a teacher before Taliban forced her out of her job, could not accept to see her daughter grow uneducated. Her bright and equality-oriented mentality sat her to search and ultimately find an underground school, which was operated strictly clandestine by a brave woman. Only a small group of girls attended the underground school which was located in a private house. Frequently threatened to death, the woman director of the school was risking her life for operating the school. [...]
Emigration is more than just leaving your home and country behind. It is a very deep experience of moving from one’s language, culture, and other emotional and intellectual attachments to another geography and culture that you are not familiar with and need to begin everything anew. [...] Like a tree, you get uprooted from one soil and part of the earth and try to get rooted again in another soil, another part of earth, and struggle to turn green again ... and with no guarantee to either turn green or dry. Sharing my experience with you gives me a good feeling now. Such stories should be written and read so often that people do not forget about deprivations and struggles of women in countries like Afghanistan."
Mariam Meetra is from Afghanistan, she studied journalism and PR in Kabul. She is a writer, member of Afghan PEN and women’s rights activist and has been living in Berlin since 2015. At the time the portrait was taken she was 25 years old.