I Am an Afghan Girl

by Bano Ahmadi

I am an Afghan girl, one of many Afghan girls whose birth is counted as a big challenge and a disgraceful event in a country like Afghanistan. My birth was also a challenge for my parents. My father was concerned and frightened by the birth of his fifth daughter. Even my mother didn’t want to embrace me and feed me like a real, responsible mother; she didn’t want to make the first days of my life beautiful under the scarf of her love. But with the passing of time everything slowly changed.

I am someone who recognized her own challenges and worked hard and passed all of them. I was enthusiastic about gaining the knowledge to study abroad. I spent several months at educational centers to enrich my education and improve my ability to achieve my ambitions. During this time, I realized the need to learn English. After exhaustive searches, I found Star Educational Society as the best place to acquire this language. Currently, I can honestly say that 80% of my English skills are fluent and correct.

I was always proud of being Hazara but in recent years genocide against Hazaras has increased as several targeted attacks have been focused on educational centers like Mawoud, Kawsar-e-Danish and Sayed Shohada high school, where hundreds of Hazara students were killed. The Taliban’s continued prejudicial and harsh treatment of Hazaras makes me sad and hopeless. The Taliban make life seem dark by setting new limitations for girls every single day.

These challenges stop me from going to school, but also persuade me to be more stalwart in achieving my goals and to become one of the best politicians for my country. I have a lot of plans and wishes for my country. I want to start by creating new policies for Afghanistan that will propel Afghan society towards democracy. I want to light the candle in every part of Afghanistan so that after this time no Afghans, including girls and boys, will be sacrificed in the name of ridiculous customs which are based on ignorance and illiteracy.

I want to increase security all over Afghanistan in order to prevent the grief of mothers who lose their children to violence. I want to prevent children from losing their parents because of insecurity. I want to propagate the wish of every Afghan girl to be free by establishing justice throughout Afghanistan that does not allow any man to set any kind of limitation for any Afghan girl or woman. Every Afghan girl and woman should have the right to get an education and work.

I am keen to develop jobs for every Afghan man and woman in the future, so as to rescue people from persistent poverty which has caused the fatality of their immaculate and oppressed brains. Like every single Afghan I am also waiting impatiently for the day when Afghanistan is devoid of fighting and discrimination and stands beside developed and improved countries of the world, with all the honor and pride of being Afghan. I believe that day is not far.