Yalda Bilal Ahmadi

I hope nobody has to go through what I experienced. I was born in the midst of war. I grew up in the midst of war. I fought for my rights and the rights of all women. I had hopes for a peaceful future. But in one instant all of that was destroyed. 

I am a criminal defence lawyer and I worked at Medica Afghanistan in the fields of law and advocacy. It was more than just a job. My team and I brought about real changes in the lives of real people. We called for changes in the law. We lobbied against so-called ‘virginity tests’ as admissible evidence in court – these are forced gynaecological examinations by authorities. And we campaigned for the right to compensation payments for both physical and psychological harm. We spoke with representatives of ministries and the Supreme Court. We fought for the rights of survivors of sexualised violence, some of whom were only 14 years old.  

Doing any of this in a patriarchal society was not easy as a woman. Every step took us into danger. Sometimes, when I was speaking to important people – generally men – I was scared. But nonetheless, I took this important further step and spoke up for the rights of women in Afghanistan. We were so proud of our work. I was overjoyed when the Law on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW Law) was passed.  It came into force in 2009 after long struggles. For the first time there was a legal recognition of rape and family violence as crimes.  

Then the Taliban came.  

My sister-in-law had been living in Poland since her studies. From there she did everything in her power to secure humanitarian visas for us and other activists. We were in danger. Not only because the Taliban were pursuing all women’s rights activists.

They had also opened up the prisons, setting prisoners free who included men convicted as a result of my work. 

Thanks to the efforts of my sister-in-law, we received visas from the Polish government. There were 16 in our group, including the elderly and very young children. With the documents in our pockets we drove to the airport on August 23. I was two months pregnant.  

For a whole day and a whole night we tried to get to one of the entrances. In vain. Desperate people were everywhere.

The Taliban were shooting into the air to try and calm everyone down. There was no way to get through. When my mother and mother-in-law exhausted their strength we gave up. A day later we tried again. We were in contact with the Polish soldiers, but the queues of people were too long and we could not get through to them. We gave up again. 

Then we tried a third time to get closer to the airport. This time via a wastewater system alongside the airport building. Carrying our children and supporting my mother-in-law, we climbed into the ditch and waded through knee-deep stinking sewage. The Polish soldiers were waiting at the other end and pulled us up out of the dirt. 

We spent two months in refugee accommodation in Poland. I felt like a bird in a golden cage and cried every day. Then, thanks to the efforts of medica mondiale, I was able to go to Germany with my husband and our children. I was happy, yet in despair at the same time. My parents and my mother-in-law had lost their home because of me, and now I had to leave them alone in Poland, an unfamiliar country?  

Today, we all live in the same country, at least. We are in Nordrhein-Westfalen, with the rest of the family in Bayern and Thüringen. For now the distance between us is too far to see each other very often. We have not yet been able to find our own apartment and still live in refugee accommodation. I hope soon we will all be able to live closer. 

My next steps? At the moment, I am learning German. My young son is now 12 months old and when he is a little bit older, I want to try and find work in my field, perhaps as a legal assistant.   

I am longing to see the day when I can once again become active in the struggle for justice: when I can compare the texts of laws and draft changes to them, when I can lobby for the enforcement and implementation of these changes, when I can network with other activists, and when I can represent women in court again. I am happy to be able to live in Germany. But I also often pray to God that this all turns out to be a bad dream. I want to wake up in my bed in Kabul and continue my path there, from the point it was interrupted so violently in August 2021. Full of hope for the future.