A letter that aims to be the voice of all Afghan girls, girls who are enduring an imposed and cruel silence.
This week marks three years since the Taliban took control of the government in Afghanistan. Dr. Sima Samar—former deputy president and minister of women’s affairs for Afghanistan and long-time friend of the Feminist Majority Foundation and Ms.—shared this letter from a girl in Afghanistan, Suraya Mohammadi. In it, Mohammadi implores the world to take note of life under the Taliban regime, where women and girls have fallen victim to institutionalized oppression. The international community cannot look away.
My dear friend,
I am writing this letter to you and through you, to your friends, world leaders, United Nations, Human Rights organizations, Women’s Rights Organizations, women and girls around the world.
My name is Suraya Mohammadi, a girl living in the heart of Afghanistan, a country under Taliban rule. I write this letter with a heart full of pain and hope, a letter that aims to be the voice of all Afghan girls, girls who are enduring an imposed and cruel silence.
To the leaders of the world, to the women and girls around the world, I ask you to be our voice. Do not forget us, do not leave us alone.
Since the day the Taliban regained power, my life and the lives of thousands of other girls have turned into a nightmare. We have been deprived of going to school and continuing our education, from working and having a bright future. Every day, I look out of the small window of my house and wish that I could go back to school, open my books again and dream of becoming a doctor, an engineer or a lawyer. But sadly, these dreams have now turned into a nightmare we experience while awake.
Being a girl in Afghanistan means living in the shadow of fear and injustice. We are ignored, our human value is trampled upon, and no one listens to our voices. When they tell us that we have no right to education, they are essentially telling us that we have no value. When we are forced into arranged marriages, they are essentially saying that our opinions and feelings do not matter. Each passing day, we are further stripped of our human rights, and no one comes to our aid.
Have you ever wondered what it feels like when someone tells you that you have no rights? What it feels like when you see your friends in other countries freely going to school, working, and building a bright future, while you are trapped in an invisible prison? We Afghan girls wrestle with these feelings every day. Every day, we face the harsh reality that our lives have no value and no one cares about us.
I wake up every day with fear and terror. Is today the day they will force me into marriage? Is today the last time I will step foot in our home? These unanswered questions push me to the brink of despair every day. But in the midst of this darkness, a glimmer of hope still remains. Hope that perhaps one day this nightmare will end, and we can live again, laugh again, learn again and build a bright future.
I am not just a girl; I am a representative of thousands of girls living in this wounded land. Girls who have been deprived of all human rights simply because they are female. We have no right to choose, no right to decide about our lives. Even the right to choose our life partner has been taken from us. We are forced into arranged marriages without even being asked our opinion.
Every day when I wake up, I am confronted with a suffocating feeling and overwhelming pressure. With each passing day, I feel that a part of my soul and being is being destroyed. All my dreams gradually crumble and give way to a harsh and bitter reality. The future that I once looked upon with hope now seems like a distant and unattainable shadow.
We Afghan girls have been deprived of education, deprived of our human rights, and deprived of living with dignity and respect. Every day when we wake up, we face the bitter reality that we are ignored, and our human value is disregarded. Every moment of our day is filled with fear and anxiety, fear of an uncertain future and anxiety that we may never be able to escape this cruel prison.
To the leaders of the world, to the women and girls around the world, I ask you to be our voice. Do not forget us, do not leave us alone. Hear our pain and suffering and fight for us. We need your support, we need you to make our voices heard around the world. We too have the right to live, to be educated, to work, to choose. We too are human beings and our human rights must be respected.
With hope for the day we can live freely again, study, work and pursue our dreams.
With respect and tears shed,
Suraya Mohammadi
A girl from Afghanistan
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