When I won a government scholarship to study in Pakistan, I didn’t tell my father. Previously, I’d once won a scholarship to Bangladesh but he didn’t let me go. This time, no matter what he said, I was coming to Pakistan to study. The night I left our home, , I held my mother’s hand as I told my father, “Father, there are no more chances for girls after this. I’m going, and at the very least I’m going to use the one chance that came my way.”
My problems began on the very first day of university. My language skills weren’t up to their standards. Professors would ask, “Do you understand Urdu?” I’d say no. Then they’d ask if I knew English. I’d say a little.
“So why did you come?” asked the office staff when they realized I didn’t know English. It was very hard for me. There was no way to learn Urdu and English overnight, and no way I was going to turn around and go home just because I lacked that ability.
On top of that, life in a second country isn’t easy, either. The scholarship money isn’t enough. I have to budget everything from day one to make it last until the end of the semester, because those funds cover dormitory rent, language course fees, and daily living expenses. I can’t ask my family for money.
My name is Seema. I’m 27 years old and live in Islamabad, Pakistan. I have six sisters and two younger brothers. My father was the only breadwinner in our home, but he’s been confined to the house since he lost his eyesight. Life was already hard for my family, and it’s gotten harder in recent years.
Here in Pakistan, I and other students struggle to obtain proper visas. As you probably know, visas are extremely difficult for Afghans to obtain, and I went without one for about seven months. I didn’t even leave the dormitory, out of fear that the police would catch me and my studies would be left unfinished. If I needed basic personal items, I’d have to ask other girls to buy them in the market. I stayed in the dormitory so long that I grew exhausted from seeing its walls.
Recently, I was deeply shaken to hear that Pakistan has ordered the expulsion of students in medical fields. I am one of those Afghan students. I heard that Afghan medical students have been told they must leave by the end of today — September 8 — and return to Afghanistan. This news hit me like that of the fall of Kabul.
As girls, our honest fear is that the Ministry of Interior’s next order might target all students who came here on scholarships. If we are swept into this same process then we’ll lose even the one chance we have to better ourselves. That truly is our fear, especially since conditions for the education of girls do not exist inside Afghanistan.
A new problem seems to arise almost every day. When we submit our documents to Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission (HEC), they CC our universities and even our old schools in Afghanistan on emails asking those institutions to verify their records as to whether we have completed four years of a bachelor’s degree, or 12 years of schooling. Based on those confirmations, we’re then issued an equivalency certificate — for instance, if we enrolled for a bachelor’s program, they issue an equivalent-to-bachelor’s document.
But when these emails are sent to the schools and universities in Afghanistan, the administrators don’t respond, which means they don’t verify our documents. This lack of a response applies to both public and private universities. As for schools, we cannot even assume those now in charge have an email address or regularly use email, let alone that they will respond to such queries from Pakistan.
I and several other girls here need those universities to email Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission confirming that we fully completed our four years of study and have bachelor’s degrees. But when we email our own universities in Afghanistan asking about the documents, they tell us that the Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education has instructed them not to fully process or verify female students’ documents.
Because the Taliban will not confirm our credentials, we’re facing a serious problem in Pakistan. When we go to Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission, we find girls from other universities there as well, saying that their documents aren’t being verified by universities in Afghanistan either. The result is that the equivalency certification process has stalled for most Afghan students in universities in Pakistan.
This is the biggest problem we currently face. Even if we graduate, we won’t be given our certificates, because without equivalency certification or confirmation from universities in Afghanistan, they won’t issue us our degree. And then there’s the visa problem on top of that — most students don’t have visas and can’t move around freely.
This is my final semester of my master’s degree, and I’m working on my thesis research. But the closer I get to finishing, the more a different fear grows in me: What will I do if I have to go back to Afghanistan?
What’s the difference between me and a woman with no education at all? She sits at home, and I, too, would have to sit at home with no plan for my life.
Over the past five years, under Taliban rule, women have been shut out of work and education, left in a state of total uncertainty about their future. Neither favourable working conditions nor the option of continuing my education are available to me if I return to Afghanistan. Sometimes I think that everything I achieved through so much hardship will be lost if I go back, even the few English words I have learned.
Sometimes, my parents say during telephone calls, “Once you finish your studies, come get married and build your own home and life.” When I hear that, I choke up. Why should marriage be the only option for a girl when she has no chance to study or work?
If Afghan girls are given a chance, they will prove it. We have talent. We have ability. We simply don’t have the opportunity to grow.
To the girls of Afghanistan, I say this: Use whatever path you believe will build your capacity. Don’t let others decide for you. Decide for yourselves, and be yourselves.
I still hope that one day another chance will come — a chance so that everything I’ve endured won’t have been for nothing.
Seema is the pseudonym for the author, an Afghan student who lives in Islamabad, Pakistan.
