Kamila Gulchin

My older brother was like a rock for me: a source of strength always standing behind me. One morning in May 2019 he woke me as usual, saying: “Come, it’s time to go to work.” He was a doctor in a hospital and I had just started work as a lawyer at Medica Afghanistan. It would be the last time he woke me up.  

Later that very day he suffered a heart attack at work. From that point on I assumed responsibility for his wife and three children, since this was what I had promised him shortly before his death.

The loss of my brother affected me very deeply. But I was strong then. I was accustomed to fighting. 

I grew up in Pol-e Khomri, the capital of Baghlan Province in north-east Afghanistan. The influence of the Taliban there was huge. From an early age I struggled against the pressure of a conservative society. Girls should not go out on the street. Girls should not go to school. Girls should wear certain clothing. My mother was a teacher. She supported me strongly. Nevertheless, there was a constant fear that the school – and later the university – would shut its doors to us as girls. 

Fear remained with me when I started work. Together with a colleague, I provided help to women affected by violence in Baghlan. There was a lot of violence committed by their husbands, but also by the in-laws. We tried to use dialogue to resolve these conflicts. If this did not succeed, then I represented the woman in court.  

Hostility was part of my everyday life. On my way to court men would frequently attempt to intimidate or even hit me. Or they would call me and threaten: “I will see to it that you disappear.” None of this stopped me from doing my work.  

I wanted to put my abilities to use for the benefit of my country and its women. After all, every day I could see the extreme injustice that female Afghans were being subjected to. I simply did not want to accept that.  

On August 10, I had just returned home from work in the evening when I heard loud calls down in the street. The Taliban had arrived in the city. It only took a few hours for the fear to become overwhelming. And for me to become powerless. 

A few days later I received a call. It was the first of many. A man’s voice asked, “Are you Kamila Gulchin?” He told me I had to report to the Amr-bil-Maruf, the religious police. Of course I did not go. But when the mullah at my mosque received the same message, then I fled to Kabul, together with my mother. Kabul was where my fiancé lived. And it was where medica mondiale was looking for opportunities to evacuate us from.  

We stayed in the capital for four months, which felt like four years. Bitter years full of fear. Fear of the first light of day. Fear of death. Fear they would do something to my mother. 

In between the fears were occasional hopes but always ending in disappointment. Sometimes we heard an evacuation plan had been set. But then it did not work out. Then they said we would have to find our own way out of the country. Later we heard single people would only be allowed to take one person with them. So how should I choose between my fiancé and my mother? In the end I was lucky and was able to take both with me to Germany. In November 2021 we flew to Hannover via Qatar.  

How strongly I would like to be able to delete memories. Because then I would ban from my head the painful thoughts of the death of my brother. And the memories of August 2021.  

I had been fighting all my life – and now I had lost everything. My home. My family. And myself. The joy I could feel in the aeroplane felt like betrayal. I was flying to a safe country but leaving behind my sister-in-law and her children, in spite of my promise to my deceased brother.  

It is now three years since I came to Germany, but at night the fear returns and I find myself back in Afghanistan in that summer of 2021. When I wake up, I feel a flood of relief because I know I would not manage to survive if the situation happened again. Even in my dreams, I lack the strength for this. 

In the past few months, however, I have begun to feel my old strength returning. It is slowly pushing back the fear. My legal studies have been recognised here as equivalent to a Bachelor degree. So, as soon as I pass my C1 German language test, I could do a Master and then work again providing legal advice. Or maybe I will do some further training as a mediator. I have not decided yet, but I have ambitions again, and I know that I can achieve them.