The Afghan woman who posed as a man to survive the Taliban

08/21/2021 12:36 PM

• Clarín.com

• Dresses

Updated 08/21/2021 12:36 PM

At 8 years old,

Nadia Ghulam

thought that the word war was something distant, a kind of legend that adults told about a distant past that would no longer be repeated in

Afghanistan

, until

a bomb fell on her house and changed everything forever.

The fire and the impact of the blast destroyed her home and

left her in a coma and on the verge of death

.

He spent the next two years wandering around hospitals, but that was just the beginning of the hell that

took the life of his brother

, killed in combat, and ruined what was left of

his father with a psychic illness from post-traumatic stress disorder.

When he recovered, he found a different country in which women could no longer work, study, or even go out on the streets as they used to.

The Taliban regime had marked oppression especially those of gender and in turn

their family circle was too beaten like to react.

Nadia disguised as a man: she pretended to be her brother for ten years.

Photo: Video Capture

So it was Nadia who,

being just a child

, assumed that only she could help her loved ones to get ahead and the solution came with a disguise:

"I had to dress like a man for ten years to be able to help my family "

.

"As there were no men at home who worked, I dressed as a boy to be able to work," he

told the Spanish newspaper Niusdiario, recalling those dramatic days that are now a reality in his country again.

"I thought it would be one day

and that the next day things would change, but that day turned into a decade.

I worked in construction, in a workshop, and whatever job that came out."

She pretended to be her brother

, although it was not easy: she was risking her life every time she went out to earn some money, if she was discovered, the punishment would be the death penalty, surely with public stoning, but not I had no choice: 

"I had to do it so I could put a piece of bread in my mouth and feed my family," he

added in an interview with CNN.

Nadia Ghulam and her disguise, if discovered she could die.

Photo: Video Capture

Today, with 36 years of which the last 15 were spent in Barcelona, ​​he fights from abroad to spread the reality in Afghanistan and

still tries to help his family from that endless nightmare that began in his childhood

.

He came to Spain thanks to the Association for Human Rights in Afghanistan but his

family was never able to leave

Kabul.

The difference is that, this time

the chances of survival

are very low:

"They have nowhere to go, this time they cannot escape."

"At other times we spent two years in a refugee camp, on the border of Pakistan," Nadia recalled to the site.

"But this time it's different. At her age, my mother can hardly walk anymore."

Today, at the age of 36, Nadia Ghulam spreads the dramatic situation in Afghanistan.

Photo: Video Capture

Throughout her stay in Europe,

Nadia became a benchmark for human rights in her country.

He wrote three books (translated into 14 languages) in which he recounted the miseries suffered by his people, but

now he fears that all this history of fighting for peace will turn his family into a target of the Taliban regime

.

That is why he spends hectic days in which he regularly contacts the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to request asylum for his parents.

"We are afraid that they will take the girls or that they will take it with my family.

They know that I am a very active person in Catalonia, I have published three books translated into 14 languages ​​and

my family is in danger."

His family resides in Kabul, where the Taliban and other groups roam everywhere armed.

"

They enter the houses and search them, and even rob. There is a lot of insecurity and we Afghans are very afraid of the Civil War."

Nadia Ghulam was able to escape to Barcelona and from there she became a leader in the cause.

Photo: Video Capture

In this context, the risk for his family is very high:

"They have nowhere to go, this time they cannot escape

. In previous wars we spent two years in a refugee camp, on the border of Pakistan. But this time it is different.

With her age, my mother can hardly walk anymore. "

"

They have limited Kabul so that people can easily surrender to the Taliban. They don't have water, they cut the power.

They don't let the news get through, they don't let the food in. Kabul has become a huge refugee camp. People who have escaped to this city only find hunger, violence and robbery.

They cannot go out because outside are the biggest monsters, putting pressure on the city. "

How do you contact your family?

"I bought a mobile internet and send him, and charged them where they can because there is

no electricity.

And they

can not watch TV, but they know what goes through what people say."

From Barcelona he fights so that his family can be saved.

Photo: Video Capture

Torture of being a

woman in Afghanistan

"There are several women in my family, with what that entails in my country, and I have the responsibility to help them.

Women are in more danger in Afghanistan because the Taliban, when they enter, the first thing they do is go after them.

For them , the woman stops being a human being and becomes a currency of exchange ",

Nadia said.

"I have been in psychiatric therapy for many years to be able to survive these war traumas, something that has become torture for me.

When I watch the news, each video ... I feel the tears of my sister, my cousin, my family",

she closed moved.

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