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Razia’
s story
by Anja Ivanovic, aged 16
She stands in the school corridor, giggling with her
friends, no more distinguishable from the adolescent
crowds than the next girl. Yet, the life that she has
lived, the things she has seen, and how much she has
suffered, distinguishes her greatly from these fellow
students in a country she has only just recently begun
to call home. This is her story.
"I do not have good memories of living in my country,"
Razia Danesh, a 16-year-old Afghani refugee, tells me.
"Sometimes it was good. Mostly, it was bad."
Razia was about seven years old when the Taliban
came into power. She remembers the fear they all lived
in. "The Taliban were extremely religious. It was a
requirement to pray a number of times a day. If men
were seen clean-shaven, they were beaten. Women had
to wear the Bourka (a long, cloak-like garment which
covers all of the body, with a small opening for the
eyes) or they too would suffer at the violent hands of
these soldiers. It was a most terrifying time."
The Danesh family, which consisted of Razia, her three
younger siblings and her parents, lived in a small
village called Ghazni. They belonged to the middle
class, owning a shop two hours away from their home
and a block of land for growing crops. Life was tough,
but they got by.
Razia’s world began to fall apart when her father was
arrested in 1998. He was on his way to work and never
returned home. The family was notified by local
villagers five days after the disappearance; they were
told that their father had been arrested by the Taliban.
Afghan refugee in Ghousabad, an urban slum in Quetta, Pakistan.
Photo: Benatuar 2001
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