‘Don’t forget Afghanistan’: Student’s plea for help as Taliban continue to suppress women
Posted January 16, 2023 11:11 am.
Last Updated January 18, 2023 10:50 am.
Fatima Haidari is from Afghanistan, and she’s now studying at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, after fleeing her country when the Taliban took control in 2021, following the withdrawal of American troops.
Despite their promises, the Taliban continue to restrict women’s rights and freedoms.
Last month, the regime ordered all foreign and domestic non-governmental groups in the country to suspend employing women, only a few days after banning female students from attending universities.
“We had economists who were women, politicians who were women, like pilots who were women, so that was not a small achievement and things were changing like about women,” said Haidari.
Fatima Haidari (Photo Credit: Fatima Haidari)
Haidari says the Taliban do not consider girls human beings and she’s not sure what would have happened to her if she hadn’t gotten out.
“It was just like a real horror movie, but I wish it was a horror movie. It was the real life of people.”
Haidari was born in a rural village in the Ghor province, one of Afghanistan’s poorest regions. Since she was a child, she’s been fighting for her right to an education.
“I was the kind of child who had always a curious mind, I mean I questioned so many things in my life, ‘like why the boys can do this but the girls no?’ And I decided to do it,” she explained.
At only seven years old, she started educating herself by listening to a teacher instructing boys while she tended to her family’s sheep and cows.
She then worked day and night to produce handmade crafts to sell, eventually saving enough money to attend school.
“Thanks to my mother who has always been my hero we like decided to work harder and we decided to sleep less and make more handicrafts.”
Haidari became the first female tour guide in Afghanistan and now, in collaboration with untamed borders, the 24-year-old offers virtual tours of her country to support an underground organization that’s educating girls in Afghanistan.
“First I wish in Afghanistan without Taliban, and second free women who have the right to educate, but what I want to ask like from the world is to not forget Afghanistan.”
