She was only 15. In the mornings, when her mother called her, she was still sleepy. Sometimes she got out of bed reluctantly, and sometimes she woke up before her mother called her a second time. She put on her black clothes and white chador, packed her books into her bag and headed to school, unaware that these simple daily routines would one day become the greatest regret of her life.
For Sahar, school was part of her ordinary life, just like morning tea, getting dressed and leaving the house. She loved drawing. One day, she drew a green path in her notebook and placed a figure of herself at the end of it, wearing green clothes.
Her mother said, “Everything around you is green, and even your shirt is green.”
Sahar laughed and asked, “Do you know what it means?”
Her mother replied, “It means you will flourish and achieve what your heart desires.”
Sahar said, “Yes, Mom. I want to become a judge, just like my father, who became a prosecutor.”
Back then, her dreams were simple: school, university, becoming a judge and building a future. Sometimes she worried about her math exams. On some mornings, she wished she could sleep a little longer. She laughed with her classmates and talked about their teachers and the future, just like any other 15-year-old girl.
She thought she would go to school tomorrow, the day after, next month and the following year. But August 15 marked the end of that ordinary “tomorrow,” a day no one had imagined would one day disappear.
At first, Sahar thought the school closures would last only a few more days. Then they said a few weeks. Then they said the following month, and later, the next year. But the days, months and years passed, and five years went by.
Sahar, who was 15, is now 20. Her mother says she has grown taller, her voice has changed and she has become a young woman. But Sahar herself still feels trapped somewhere in those days when she was 15. All it takes is hearing someone mention school for her to feel 15 again. Her heart sinks, her throat tightens with emotion, and she wishes she could sit in a classroom for one more morning, even if it were a math class.
But outside her dreams, people say, “She’s 20 now. She’s grown up. It’s time for her to get married.”
Yet Sahar is not just one girl. She represents thousands of 15-year-old girls who turned 20 over these five years, thousands of 16-year-olds who turned 21, and thousands of 17-year-olds who turned 22. These are girls who were deprived of more than an education. They lost parts of their childhood, adolescence, choices and futures. Some became victims of early and forced marriages, some migrated, and others are still waiting for school gates to reopen, their books gathering dust.
Whenever I see girls like Sahar, one question keeps circling in my mind: If these misogynistic extremists are ever removed from Afghanistan’s future, what will become of girls like Sahar? Can those five lost years be returned to them? Will Sahar and the others ever get to be 15 again?
A school is not merely a gate that has been closed. Behind that gate lie years of life taken from millions of people.
Sahar has turned 20, but she has lost the chance to live her 15th year. Such is the tragedy of ignorance when it takes control of a society’s destiny: it forces its children to grow up without ever allowing them to experience childhood.
Girls like Sahar have grown up, but their dreams are still standing behind the closed gates of their schools
