When the Taliban arrived in her town, Zahra Karimi was working at the hospital where she was an assistant to a surgeon and was advised, like all her colleagues, to rush home. She ran, thinking she would have to hide for a day or two, until the situation returned to normal.
But that never happened.
Today, the 23-year-old Afghan lives in São Paulo as a refugee from a regime that denies women almost everything. A resident of Herat, one of the first major urban centers seized by the Taliban in their return to power offensive in Afghanistan, Zahra found it hard to believe that not only her city, but the entire country would again fall under the yoke of the extremist group – at a speed that surprised including the western powers that occupied the region for 20 years.
“It was a shock. It was unbelievable. Unbelievable”, repeats the young woman, sitting at the entrance of the collective residence in the Bela Vista neighborhood where she lives with her uncle and five other Afghans, men and women, almost all photographers.
Zahra belongs to a generation of Afghans who have lived most of their lives with access to basic rights — going to school, walking the streets and working — and who have seen it all disappear overnight under the strict Taliban code of conduct. that especially affects women.
Some of them took refuge in Brazil, with a humanitarian visa granted by the country; more than 5,651 documents have been issued since September 2021, according to Itamaraty. Zahra’s story is the first in a series of three Afghan women who told their stories to Sheet a year after the Taliban returned to rule the country. The other texts will be published this Saturday (13) and Sunday (14).
When the Taliban returned to rule, all families with young daughters became very afraid that they would kidnap them and force them to marry them. So my friends and I made a decision: that if they wanted to take us and we couldn’t escape, we would kill ourselves. We were really safe. We’d rather have that than having to live a horrible life with them.
I am from the Hazara ethnic group, who have always had problems with the Taliban. Most of the Hazaras from Herat moved to Kabul, thinking that they would not be able to get there, that the capital would resist. In these situations any decision can be dangerous. We chose to leave the house for a safer place in the city itself. I don’t know how long we stayed like this. I had no idea of the passing of days and nights.
Everyone burned military IDs, work documents for foreign groups and photographs. I preferred to hide our documents underground.
I was born in Iran, my Afghan grandparents were forced to migrate there due to the war against the Soviets (1979-1989). I was three years old when the Taliban left the government the other time (in 2001). My parents were overjoyed and decided to come back. But now the situation is like this and I had to leave. Again.
In Afghanistan you have to have a lot of skills, because if you can’t find work in one area, you can try in another. I worked as a midwife and assistant to a plastic surgeon. He had also been photographing since he was 18 years old and was participating in an ITC project. [International Trade Center, agência ligada à Organização Mundial do Comércio e à ONU]. The Taliban don’t like journalists and photographers, much less women photographers. We couldn’t go on our way there anymore, we were at risk.
At that moment all countries stopped giving visas to Afghans, it was very frustrating, but even so we prepared to leave, not knowing where we were going. We just wanted to escape. Hugging my mother for the last time was really, really hard.
Our group spent three days and two nights in line at the Pakistani border, standing, without eating or drinking. It was very cold. the Pashtuns [mesma etnia da maioria dos talibãs] they crossed easily, but we Hazaras were held back.
It was the first time I saw a Taliban up close. They beat Hazara men a lot: children, young, old, it didn’t matter. I can’t understand: how can they do this for no reason? They beat my uncle a lot, I couldn’t stand to see that. When we finally made it across, everyone hugged each other. We were alive. It was a really good feeling.
We tried to get a visa for France, the US and Germany, but we couldn’t. Finally the manager of our project at ITC, who is Brazilian, got a visa for Brazil and we came here.
I found everything here very different: the culture, the language, the people, the clothes, everything. The food was the first problem. I spent the first three days without eating anything. Today I like rice and beans, cheese bread, brigadeiro. I’ve been taking Portuguese classes for six months, still at the basic level. I like words like “wow”, “very beautiful”, “very delicious”. Pastel I find “very delicious”.
Every person of my generation wants to be successful, to learn, to improve their country, to have goals for the future. The Taliban ended all that. Everyone there is depressed, people have lost the courage to live, improve themselves. My 16-year-old sister, for example, can no longer study. The Taliban had said they would allow the girls to go to school, she prepared to go, but the same day they backed out.
Starting from scratch is very difficult for me. I miss my family every day. When I see a family on the street, I think: they can be together, in peace, in their country. It’s hard to accept that my father and mother are not with me.
But Brazilians are really nice. They usually say I’m the first person from Afghanistan they know. The first thing I want is to learn Portuguese. Then, continue working with photography, improve myself, because I have a lot to learn. I’m trying to be part of that people.
