Mursal Rahim, 26 years old
I was born in 1996 in Kunduz, a small town in northern Afghanistan, when the Taliban took over Afghanistan for the first time, and like today, girls were not allowed to go to school. But in 2001 the Taliban lost power and at the age of 5 I started going to school with many dreams. Even as a child I felt that I was now free.
I remember how excited and happy I was, even though my school had no chairs, no blackboards, no books—the classroom in ruins from the war. My class had girls from 5 to 14 years old. We studied together because we were the first generation of girls to go to school after five years of Taliban.
Some days we couldn’t attend class because the Taliban were attacking. Twice the Taliban took over the city for days. Each time we had to go to Kabul for weeks to fully cover ourselves to escape the city. I still remember this feeling: maybe today is the last day that I can go to school.
In high school, I had a classmate who was 17 when she got married. The man always hit her. I told her that one day I would become a lawyer and help her get a divorce.
I went to study law. While there, I mentored at a nonprofit that helped women who were beaten by their husbands. A woman told me that her husband had beaten her more than once. I asked her: why don’t you get a divorce? She said she couldn’t do that because without an education and a job, she had nowhere to go if she left him.
After law school, I planned to get my master’s degree, but last August, when the Taliban took over, my country went back 21 years.
For years, the war filled moments of my life and childhood. My people and I have experienced the loss of family, friends, our homes and our homeland. The good days we had hoped for never came.
I never thought I would become a refugee. I left Afghanistan to continue my education. I want to show how strong Afghan women are, and I want to take advantage of the opportunity I have in the United States to study. And I will.
