Translator: Nilam Noorzad

In the darkness of the night and the painful silence of the sky, my mother and I packed our belongings together and decided to leave our land and homeland, both with a thousand fears, and embark on the journey of migration for a better future. My main fear was leaving behind all my wishes, dreams, and abandoning my homeland. On the other hand, not having a male companion; my mother and I had to travel 2240 kilometers to our destination in Pakistan alone, and not having a man by our side added to the fear of our journey, and burdened my mother, who never let go of her prayer beads, constantly praying for our safe arrival.

Looking at my mother's face, I felt what risks she had taken for me and my future; seeing how much hardship she had endured in life so far, she gave me courage and hope, knowing that I am her only child and her hope for the future, she could go any way and endure any difficulty for my happiness and success.

But I knew that the reason for all my mother's suffering was my being a girl; because if I were a boy, undoubtedly life would have been much easier for both me and my mother. I remember abandoning all the dreams I had because I was a girl; because of my gender, I was unable to pursue my passion for becoming a footballer due to the sexist gaze of Afghan society. The hurtful words about my gender shattered my dreams, as I could not explain to everyone that football has nothing to do with gender.

With all these pains, another chapter of life turned for me, and another spark was ignited within me, and that spark was nothing but the desire to become a journalist; this ambition and dream came to my mind when cultural programs were introduced in our school, and I could shine in all the programs as the best presenter and organizer, which inspired me to pursue another goal.

This time I told myself, "Somiya, you have to study hard to achieve this goal and excel;" I started planning to be able to get an acceptable score in journalism in the university entrance exam. For this reason, I decided to enroll in a preparatory center for the university entrance exam and pursue my studies and academic programs regularly. I was one of the thousands of enthusiastic young people who saw the future with hope and wove the threads of my dreams every second and minute; but these threads did not last long, and tragic events changed the color of the city.

The explosion at the Mawoud educational center and the killing and injuring of the most distant and hardworking young people in western Kabul, wiped away the hopeful face of the city and left hundreds of young girls and boys who were only guilty of striving to build their future in mourning. The intensity of the explosion and the loss of my friends tormented my soul and psyche for a while and darkened my outlook on the future.

After a few months, I decided to stand tall again and strive to achieve my pure goals and those of my comrades who had lost their sweet lives in the sacred path of knowledge, and I kept reminding myself that I had to be the continuation of the path of those who had lost their lives today for the sake of sitting on the student seat, becoming a teacher, a doctor, an engineer, and so on, and they lay beneath the soil, still have hope in you and want you to be the continuation of their path. For this reason, I tried harder than before and studied, and managed to get accepted to Parwan University in the journalism faculty.

For two years, I pursued the lofty dream of journalism and experienced the joy of being a student, but suddenly the wheel of time turned backward, and Kabul fell to the Taliban, and the coming of the Taliban essentially meant the loss of all the good things and the downfall of all young people, especially girls. With the arrival of the Taliban, a profound transformation came to my life and my mother's life; because all our relatives migrated, and my mother and I were left alone in a place where everyone was monsters dressed as humans. However, this is just one aspect of the story, and the main problem of my life began when the gates of the university were closed to girls, and in fact, I saw a deep regression in the form of women's lives.

Sometimes I looked at life and saw that with all my thousands of problems, I had brought myself this far, and now everything is gone and destroyed. The limitations imposed by the Taliban on women on one hand, and the failure of more than a decade of educational efforts on the other hand, made me suffer from severe depression, and I visited a psychologist twice a week and used anti-depression tablets, not knowing if I could succeed in this unequal war or not.

And the only solution and the last option was to leave the country, which was the crime of the girl Yadan in that crime. For this reason, we decided to travel and leave, and we embraced the path of migration with all its hardships. Now I am like a traveling bird, longing for the homeland every moment. A homeland that is free and where its daughter can walk shoulder to shoulder with its sons and men."