The Future They Were Meant to Build Beyond the Border Is Now Being Buried With Their Tears on This Side

This is the story of three Afghan migrant girls who were forcibly deported by the Iranian government and have returned to a land where books and pens have become forbidden objects.

A Zan News reporter, during a trip to the Islam Qala border crossing in Herat province, has written the sorrowful account of Afghan girls who were not only deported by the Iranian government but also driven away from their dreams, as follows:

In a corner of the camp for newly returned migrants at the Islam Qala border crossing, four members of a family sit together under the blazing sun, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius.

Among this family is 17-year-old Maryam, with sleepless eyes filled with tears, reflecting the exhaustion of Iran’s camps, the hurtful words of fellow-speakers, the scorching heat of the migrant camp in Islam Qala, and the dark future on this side of the border. She says: "After the Taliban closed the school doors on us, my family left Mazar-e-Sharif, and together with my father, mother, and two sisters, we illegally crossed the Nimroz border to Tehran. With difficulty, money, and connections, I got into school. Although I had studied up to the 8th grade in Mazar-e-Sharif, they placed me in 6th grade. I studied up to 9th grade, and then the Iranian government also wronged us; they expelled us just because we were Afghan."

She pulls a book out from her bag and, pointing toward it, says: “This is the last remnant of my dreams; a dream in which no light remains. I wished to return to Afghanistan after finishing university to serve my people, but once again, my education died young.”

A knot of sorrow and despair tightens in Maryam’s throat, leaving her unable to continue speaking. She wipes her tears with the edge of her scarf. After a brief pause, she resumes speaking with a trembling voice: “The Iranian government kicked us out in such a way that I wasn’t even allowed to say goodbye to my teacher. They took us from our home in the middle of the night and brought us to the camp.”

Maryam, Fariba, and Somaya are examples of Afghan girls whose families fled to Iran to escape illiteracy, war, poverty, and Taliban oppression. But now, due to the anti-immigrant policies of the Iranian government, they have been deported and returned to Afghanistan; a place where education is forbidden to them and where nothing awaits but housebound isolation, forced marriage, or silence.

Fariba, another deported Afghan girl, is sitting with her family in a corner of the camp, but concern for the future is written all over her face.

She says: “No one in the world heard our voices except God, because we are girls and from Afghanistan. We were migrants, and we were mistreated. They called us identity-less. Even in classrooms, the behavior of our teachers was discriminatory. But we endured it to reach somewhere, yet once again, we were forgotten. We were building our future, but now we have to bury those dreams in a grave because we have returned to a country where being a girl or a woman means being punished.”

With every word that leaves Fariba’s lips, the sound of a choked-up voice becomes more audible. She says that before migrating, she was a 9th-grade student in Jawzjan province, but after migrating and spending three years in Iran, she was placed in 7th grade and therefore was unable to complete her schooling: “My family fled from here so I could get somewhere, but now I see not only did I not reach anywhere, but my father sold everything we had, and now we have to live on the streets of Jawzjan because we have neither shelter nor a home.”

Laila is another deported Afghan girl. While distributing food packages provided by a charity organization, she says she is in the worst mental state:

“I have no energy at all. For a week now, I’ve been feeling terribly low. I’m truly exhausted, I hate myself, I hate the Iranian government, because it left us with nothing. What did I even want from Iran? I only wanted to study, but they deported me. I wish I were the only one deported, but thousands of girls and boys like me have been deprived of education. We really thought Iran was a good place, but now we see that it, too, is an enemy of Afghan girls’ education.”

With tearful eyes, she continues: “My goal was to become a teacher and return to my country, even to secretly teach girls. But now that I’ve returned to Afghanistan, I feel like I’m not even allowed to hold a pen again. Why? Because I am a girl, and I must either stay at home or be forced into marriage.”

In the migrant camp at Islam Qala port in Herat province, like Maryam, Fariba, and Laila, thousands of other girls have returned to the country, having left all their dreams and hopes on the other side of the border, silently weeping for their uncertain future.