A Letter from Pakistan

A plea to help a remarkable family from Afghanistan resettle in Canada.

(getty images, credit: Andriy Onufriyenko)

I have written before about a family that Claire Berlinski and I, and several others, are trying to help relocate as refugees to Canada. We are still no further along in getting sponsorship from an organization in Canada to help them emigrate, and the UNHCR in Pakistan is not giving out refugee asylum papers anymore to Afghan refugees. Here is a letter from the mother of the family, a former women’s rights advocate and defense lawyer in Afghanistan, whose life, and the lives of her children, were at risk in Afghanistan. I am going to write to several government officials in Canada to seek help, but if anyone out there can also assist, please do. Once we have sponsorship, we will be raising money to help bring them over. I have redacted names here, to protect the family.

______________

Dear Sir or Madam,

My name is xxxxx. I am an Afghan woman who is sending you this email from Islamabad, Pakistan.

In Afghanistan, I was a defense lawyer and women’s rights activist. I defended the rights of women, girls, and children, teaching many vulnerable girls and women about their rights and taking their abusers to court.

When the Taliban came to power, the men who my actions had imprisoned were released. I fled Afghanistan with my family because the released prisoners and the Taliban were seeking revenge on me. My family and I, particularly my daughters, were at extreme risk.

I was a member of the Afghanistan Independent Bar Association and worked as an independent defense lawyer in Kabul from April 1, 2018, to April 1, 2019. I managed and processed criminal cases, cases of violence against women and girls, and many other legal cases.

I have successfully finished a Legal Aid through Legal Education (LALE) fellowship program (from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2017) supported by the US Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). During my fellowship, I gained practical experience and learned to how manage and process many varieties of cases in Afghanistan’s judicial system and provide legal aid advice's to vulnerable women and girls who escaped from their house because of violence against them, also attended numerous workshops provided by a range of national and international organizations.

Afghanistan is now under the control of the Taliban, and unfortunately, the Taliban understands nothing about the rights of women and children or human rights.

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, they arrested lawyers, judges, journalists, and women’s right activists. In some cases, they killed them. They are specifically seeking out people like me for retribution.

They know who I am because on November 24, 2021, the Taliban seized the Afghanistan Independent Bar Association’s main office in Kabul, gaining access to its database. Using the information they obtained, they arrested the lawyers, sending them to prison. In some cases, they tortured and killed them to punish them fordefending women and girls. They have access to all of my information, as well as my family’s, because all of my identifying details were in that database. This puts my life and that of my family at extreme risk.

My family and I went into hiding in Afghanistan when Kabul fell. My daughters became teenage prisoners. We faced great hardship there for 18 months before we escaped.

I remember the days when I helped women and girls, but now I cannot even help myself and my family, especially my daughters. My daughters were forced to drop out of school because the Taliban have closed all girls' schools. Our lives have been changed completely since August 15, 2021. Our bodies are alive, but our souls are dead. We had no hope of a future in Afghanistan because the Taliban took every freedom away from us.

At last, on February 18, 2023, my family and I escaped from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Since that time, we have been living in Islamabad. We face an uncertain future here and we are, unfortunately, at high risk of being forcibly deported back to Afghanistan.

Life in Afghanistan is so hard now. Everyone wants to escape because the Taliban are so brutal and barbaric. My daughters were especially vulnerable in Afghanistan and at risk of being forcibly “married” against their will. Under Taliban rule, there is no limit to the evil things that can befall girls and women.

I did my job as a human rights defender. Now, I need your help. Please support me and my family. Please help me to make a brighter future for my daughters.

I ask xxxxx to process my sponsorship to come to Canada and save my family.

Yours sincerely,

xxxxx