At the Faculty of Computer Engineering in Seville there is no student with a brighter smile than Fátima Amiri. With his backpack on his shoulder he walks happily through the corridors. He realized his dream, which is much less prosaic than access to the career he always wanted to study, because, precisely, it is embedded in the value that this last verb contains: studying. A right taken for granted, but which in the country of Fatima, Afghanistan, is forbidden to girls and women like her. This young Afghan woman lost an eye, her hearing and dozens of friends in a Taliban attack while they were taking a mock entrance exam, in Kabul, on September 30, 2022. A week later, with unhealed wounds and in immense pain, she took the real exam and passed.
Her determination to study was interrupted for several reasons: the Taliban regime’s ban on women from going to university; the security problems in Ankara where he took refuge with his father to treat the wounds caused by the explosion; and the eternal and inexplicable bureaucratic obstacles to validate her qualifications and access a Spanish university since she arrived in this country as a refugee at the end of 2023. “I am an activist for the right to education of Afghan women and I myself could not exercise this right, how could I fight for them then? It was very desperate,” Fátima recalls now.
The efforts of the University of Seville (United States) to deactivate the bureaucratic cycle in which it found itself trapped transformed this 20-year-old Afghan woman into a student of its Computer Science faculty. The US Office for Development Cooperation obtained a free place for the entire course and, during the degree, accommodation in a university residence. “This first semester is a bit hard, because I’m studying in another language and I have to work a little harder because I have to translate everything, but everyone here is very friendly and helps me a lot,” he explains in almost perfect Spanish which, like his English, which is perfect, he learned by himself. She also gets involved and helps her foreign colleagues by translating explanations into the latter language.
Fátima is very focused on studying, to which, in addition to the lessons she attends in the morning, she also dedicates a good part of the afternoon. But she doesn’t forget that what for her is already a dream come true, in Afghanistan has become a nightmare for women. For this reason, from three to four in the afternoon, when he arrives in his room, he teaches English and Spanish online to the young Afghan women who are in his country. “There is only one place in the world where women have no rights, neither to work, nor to study, nor anything else: Afghanistan,” she says. “What they do, learning a language, is clandestine, illegal, and now even more so because the Taliban have imposed a nationwide blockade on the Internet,” he points out.
Four years after the regime regained power in the Asian country, the international community has stopped showing interest in the absolute elimination of civil and social rights in the country, which are much more oppressive in the case of women. “The world is silent about what is happening in Afghanistan and we need to talk more about what is happening there, but talking is not enough, we need to act with sanctions,” he laments.
This abandonment, this disinterest, reaches the point that there are faculty colleagues who are surprised when they ask Fátima what an Afghan is doing studying in Spain and she replies that it is prohibited in her country. She has chosen not to reveal to either the rest of the students or her teachers her story of sacrifice, survival and determination, which has earned her recognition by the BBC as one of the most influential women in the world in 2022. Such is her desire to enjoy university life that she just wants to be judged and known for what she has always wanted to be: a student. “I want you to get to know me and then I’ll tell you about my activism,” she says.
For this reason, when someone asks her about her glass eye, she fails to mention the attack and the oppressive and exclusionary ideology that underlies it. Because making friends, knowing the personal concerns of other students, mixing with other cultures, essential teachings that also come from university life – “beyond mathematics or numbers”, says Fátima – are another of the aspects of being able to study that she enjoys most. “I feel so much fuller, more receptive than before when I share and am able to learn from so many experiences with students and teachers, which give you different perspectives,” she says.
The difficulty of being a refugee
The obstacles, almost all administrative and bureaucratic, continue. The change of city brought with it endless battles for registration, a result achieved after three months, and which continues to obtain the health card, essential to be able to pass the medical examinations, necessary to treat the after-effects of the attack. “Being able to resume your life when you change city and are a refugee is very complicated,” he underlines.
She is also awaiting resolution of the refugee scholarship she applied for at the University in early September, when she moved to Seville to start classes. Her daily life is complicated, with very few financial resources for the most basic things and where the chain of help from university professors and other people who have supported her from the beginning is fundamental: Fran Rivera, director of the Cooperation Office of the University of Seville, Carmen Gallardo, Vice Rector for Students, Carmen Romero director of the Faculty of Computer Engineering. Adela Muñoz Páez, professor of the Faculty of Chemistry, Mónica Bernabé, journalist, and the people of NetWomening, but for her the essentials, i.e. training and learning, are covered and that is what she focuses her efforts on.
What worries her is being able to bring her father, who has a heart condition, to the Andalusian capital from Salamanca, where he continues to reside due to the impossibility of finding accommodation that Fátima can afford in Seville. It was he who accompanied her when they moved to Ankara so that she could recover from the consequences of the Taliban attack – because she, being a woman, could not travel alone – and from there they had to move to Spain, facing threats of deportation from the Turkish government.
“He doesn’t speak Spanish, he’s older and he needs my help to translate things for him. It’s difficult, because here we only have each other,” he complains. The options are limited, because after almost two years in this country, the room and board coverage (18 months) has decreased. But if there’s one thing that defines Fátima, it’s perseverance, and that’s why, in addition to looking for a way to reunite with her father, she’s also trying to figure out how to move her mother and siblings, who are now in Iran.
She, however, does not lose sight of what has become the driving force of her life: studying, that verb which for her contains a future full of possibilities and also her most painful past. “Without studying I couldn’t do anything in this world we live in. Of course there is the possibility of working, as they told me when it seemed impossible for me to go to university, but it’s what I’ve always wanted and here I was able to exercise my right to do so”, he underlines.
Once you finish your degree, you will continue your education. “I’m sure I won’t finish college,” she says bluntly. Fátima has made her dream come true, but she doesn’t stop dreaming. And on that path of desires there is one as strong as his desire to learn: to return to his country to share his knowledge with his compatriots.
