“It was very hard to start all over again”, says an activist for women’s rights exiled in France

Bob-cut curly hair, nose ring and deep gaze, Mursal Sayas is calm and does not regret her departure from Afghanistan, when the Taliban took power a year ago, on August 15, 2021. “It was very hard to start all over again in France. I had no idea what it would be like to live here, what I would do, the loneliness and the sadness”, says the 27-year-old young woman who was in the first Kabul-Paris plane of the airlift set up between France and Afghanistan, August 17, 2021.

An activist for women’s rights and a member of the national human rights commission, she had no choice but to flee her country, leaving behind her two children and her family. “I spend my days and nights thinking about Afghanistan, but for me France was a good opportunity. I learned a lot of things. I have friends from all over the world and I’m alive.”

When she was still in Afghanistan, Mursal ended his arranged marriage to continue his activism. A divorce that cost her custody of her children: a 6-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, whom she calls every day. “That’s the hardest part because you don’t know when you can see them again, your family, your parents, your children. I really don’t know when I can go see them in Afghanistan or in another country,” she laments.

I can see my family through WhatsApp. And it’s much better than living in a country under Taliban rule.

Mursal Sayas, Afghan activist exiled in France

at franceinfo

Those are “Terrorists, people who kill their own people, violate all human rights, not just women’s rights. They don’t accept equality. They don’t accept humanity!”says Mursal.

Today, she is not sure if she would like to return to Afghanistan, when she had “never thought about immigration”, before the Taliban took power.

“I would like to go back to Afghanistan, find the roads and streets I know, go back to bookstores. But I’m sure it wouldn’t be the Afghanistan I left,” concedes the activist. Today Mursal Sayas devotes herself to writing her first book on Afghan women. It will be out in a year.