Like many other Afghan woman’s rights activists, Najla Rahel had to flee the country after the Taliban takeover in August 2021. Currently, she is safe and living with her husband in Toronto, but her desire]to get her doctorate in law was diminished, and now she is learning English to pursue her dream of getting higher education in Canada. She is a prominent human rights defender and ex-lawyer who fearlessly defended women’s rights in her country and served her people for almost 15 years. She was well-known for her courage in being the defense lawyer for Frukhunda Malikzada, a girl brutally killed by a mob in 2015. She was the deputy of the Afghanistan Independent Bar Association in Afghanistan and one of the Afghan Women’s Network (AWN) board members. She was a member of a few other lawyers’ associations and councils in Afghanistan before the Taliban returned in 2021. Najla remains very active in her new community here in Toronto. She continues her lobbying and advocacy by participating in events and gathering to raise awareness of the plight of Afghan women under the Taliban regime.
Can you share your personal experiences of how the Taliban took over and their ban on education impacted your life?
Najla: You know that I was a defense lawyer in Afghanistan and was in a leadership position in Afghanistan Independent Bar Association. I never thought of leaving my country as I always had in mind that I had to support the other fellow women who needed me and also because emotionally living far from my country and family was so hard for me. With the return of the Taliban, I lost many things in my life. The first thing I lost was my job, where I had a wide range of experience and defended almost 2000 cases of women. I had the plan to write books on each case story of these women. The other important thing I lost was my dream of being an academic researcher in the law sector, especially to do in-depth research to find the root causes of violence against women. I was a PhD student in a private law program, and my dream was to learn research and do national wide research on women’s issues. In my opinion, in Afghanistan, there were never fundamental projects and programs to find out the roots of the problems. They were always temporary and ended up without any results. Not only these things, I lost my country, my home and my everything. I spent six months in an Albania camp before becoming a refugee here in Canada. I was a person that did not have even a single minute free in Afghanistan. In Albania, I decided to volunteer in the camp for all those Afghan fellows there, around 200 women, but my only job was to look at the widows and cry. Now I am just a refugee that lost everything.
Do you think displacement affected your aspirations and future goals (both positive/negative)? If yes, how? Can you share with us any challenges or opportunities you experienced in access to education?
Najla: Displacement both positively and negatively impacted my life. Maybe you agree that Canada’s and Afghanistan’s education system is very different. I was a PhD level student, but I started from zero as I must first learn the language. I had PhD admission to an Iranian university, but now as a refugee financially, I cannot manage to pay my fee to continue it online. I can also not travel because I do not have a travel document. Here in Canada, I took LINC classes for one year, which was not useful for me at all. It was very basic, but I wanted to learn academic learning. I was just in level 4 for one year and still did not finish it, so I was worried about when I might do with level 6 or 7 or graduate from grade 12 when I could start to continue my education which is my dream. Now I am studying adult school with some friends’ advice, and I am still unsure whether I am on the right track. It is so challenging for me. I am commuting, which is also affecting me not to have a job. The financial support from the government is so insufficient every month that I am worried that next month I might not be able to continue this school due to financial problems. I wanted to study in a college but was told I had to take OSPA twice to finish school and then the college. I was thinking of having no job as a newcomer and how to pay the OSAP debt later on, which will be more than CAD 60,000. Therefore, I decided to stick with this adult school because I have no clue where it takes my future. I am facing huge challenges being a refugee here.
What type of support do you think is necessary for Afghan women and girls in exile to succeed in pursuing their education?
Najla: When I was in Albania, though my case was filed with Germany and USA, I decided to come to Canada due to a couple of reasons first, because it is a special program for Afghan women’s human rights defenders, and second to continue my higher education. As we come through this special program for women’s activists, we expect to have some special attention regarding the opportunity provisions. Canada should have provided Afghan women leaders with scholarships and fellowship programs like the USA. If I had been given a fellowship opportunity to work on research on Afghanistan-related issues, I could have done it in the best way possible. In this way, I was busy and simultaneously could study.
I feel that Afghan women now living in Canada are no different from those in Afghanistan regarding being jobless. I believe 90% of them are sitting here at home, the same as those in Afghanistan. I can see that some women activists that were in leadership positions are now doing labour work because they are facing some financial problems and there is no opportunity for them to study. Canada should provide us with some educational opportunities.
What role should host countries, NGOs, educational institutions and other women’s and human rights organizations play in creating educational opportunities for displaced Afghan women and girls?
Najla: Canada has given asylum to a large number of women, so I request they should survey to find out how many of these women could manage to access some educational opportunities to continue their higher education here and how many of those with English language skills could be managed to find a kind of similar jobs they had back home. Second, host country like Canada should continue their financial support behind the one-year support so women can find their ways and have the chance to study, not be worried about their financial problems.
NGOs should have different information packages for newcomers depending on their yearly needs. If, for the first year, the newcomers need housing information and support, the second year should be more about educational and other opportunities. Unfortunately, they only provide very basic information on how to get enrolled in language classes.
Educational institutions have to provide scholarships and bursaries for low-income students. They have to minimize their requirements for admission for Afghan refugee women activists so they get a chance to study.
What types of education and skill-building training programs (e.g diploma/certificate/short courses) do you think are necessary for Afghan refugee women and girls to have access to?
Najla: Most of the women who entered Canada after the return of the Taliban is different, and you may agree with me as they are all educated; they all held high-profile jobs and positions back home. Therefore, considering their talent and field of expertise and profession, specific educational programs should be provided to them according to their area of work. I am a lawyer and want to know about Canadian laws, the judiciary system, etc. It’s been one and half years since I have been here; I still don’t know where the court is or where the attorney’s office or lawyers’ bar association are. After one and half years, I was invited by the president of women’s lawyer associations and was shocked because, for the first time here, I had gotten in touch with some lawyers. They were so good to me and motivated me a lot. Even these kinds of informative gatherings are essential and useful for knowledge sharing. There was another workshop I participated in, which was about Canadian laws, and it was so informative to me. I believe Canada should provide educational opportunities for Afghan refugee women and utilize their talents. It will be very beneficial for Canadian society and for these women themselves. E.g. now, Canada has a shortage of medical personnel; many Afghan doctors are here, and they should use these talents.
In your opinion, how can education help to promote gender equality and empower refugee women and girls, and contribute to their future success in the new host country?
Najla: I want to talk about this issue from two different aspects. First, what kind of future we might have in Canada? For example, as a lawyer from Afghanistan here in Canada, if I do not have a chance to study, I have to join the daily wage labour market, which will impact my mental health. I will be sick, so Canada will have a sick society if women are not educationally empowered. Second, it can cause domestic violence within families if women are not working due to a lack of education. I know some Afghan refugee families who came with me here to Canada. Now, there are always domestic violence cases because they are sitting at home, unable to study, especially to pursue their higher education, and cannot find jobs. The husbands also threaten them on related financial issues such as getting the Child Tax if the women refuse to give them, they threaten them that he is going back to Afghanistan. If refugee women get a chance to study, it empowers them, financially they become independent by finding jobs due to their education. In this way, it will help the community and the country, reduce violence within the families, and the women will not suffer from mental health problems.
What message would you like to share with the world on this World Refugee Day about the importance of education for Afghan refugee women and girls?
Najla: I am sorry for crying. Being a refugee is so hard. It’s so challenging. You know Canada is so beautiful, but I always feel I am inside a deep hole. Even I asked my husband if Canada is very deep in the earth, and I think I am falling. So, my message is to feel and understand the feeling of refugees. If someone loses their home or their country, it’s so difficult.
I think Afghan women refugee needs more educational opportunities considering their context. Our young generation in Afghanistan is moved 100 years ago by the Taliban regime, so our request is to provide us with educational opportunities here so we can help our fellow countrymates and take their hands from that darkness. I feel I am so strong, but whenever I say I am a refugee now, I can’t stop my emotions, so please try to understand us. Education is currently the only remedy to help us get out of these challenges we face as refugees.
I have another request; we are a generation of war; we were born in war, grew up in war, and will die in war. We have gone through many things in our lives. There should be some support from the government or association for us to write our stories in the form of a book so that the next generation should know what kind of life and the miseries we had, like today they should not say we have escaped the country to have a luxurious life.