‘The Taliban came, like, overnight’: Afghan women flee Taliban to attend college at UD

Krys’tal Griffin | Delaware News Journal

Key Points

• Higher education was abolished for Afghan women when the Taliban took over Afghanistan after U.S. troops withdrew in 2021.
• Nearly 150 students enrolled at Asian University for Women in Bangladesh, who were studying remotely in Afghanistan due to the pandemic, fled the country to pursue higher education.
• Fifteen of the women were welcomed into the University of Delaware, where a special program was created to address their unique situation.

Editor’s note: The Afghan women in this story are identified by their first names only to protect their identity and that of their family and friends in Afghanistan. Both women agreed to be photographed and videotaped for this story as long as no identifying features were visible. This is the first of a two-part series. The second story can be read here.

Crouched on a crowded bus, Taliban patrolling on the other side, Shukria made a final, brief call to her family in Pakistan. She told them she was fleeing Afghanistan to pursue her education abroad now that the United States military was withdrawing.

She spoke in whispers and shielded the light from her phone so the now-empowered Taliban did not see it and prevent her bus from breaching the gates to Hamid Karzai International Airport. Thirteen U.S. service members and around 170 Afghans were killed in a suicide bombing there the day before.

Shukria told her mother this was the only path for her and asked for prayers. She took only the clothes on her back, her phone and a few important documents.

She arrived at the Kabul airport perimeter 15 hours later with two other companions. They sat alone on the ground with the Taliban, wondering if their lack of passports would be the reason they were left behind, while the rest of the fleeing women were joined by American soldiers inside the building.

Armed Taliban members smacked guns against the wall, telling them to act appropriately to prevent men from looking at them. Crowds continued amassing beyond the airport gates, desperately seeking a chance to escape, too.

As time crawled, Shukria’s doubts crept in: Should she hold out and risk leaving Afghanistan? Or should she give up and catch a taxi home, back to everything she has ever known, at the expense of her future?

After three hours of clutching one another’s hands, hoping to make it out, Shukria and her companions took in the last glimpse of Afghanistan. They were allowed to board a plane on Aug. 28, 2021, in a tangle of fear and anticipation.

This year marks the third anniversary of the tenuous evacuation in which thousands of desperate souls clamored to get out. Now a junior at the University of Delaware, Shukria reflects on her journey to the U.S., her life since arriving in Newark, and how fortunate she was to make it into an innovative partnership at UD created to assist her and other Afghan women.

“I was not able to stay in Afghanistan, and neither in Pakistan, because the situation for girls in either place was not OK and I wanted to pursue my education. And that was the only way for me,” she said.

‘I didn’t want to end up like other girls’

Before life as she knew it ceased to be, Shukria planned to get a scholarship to attend college outside of Pakistan or Afghanistan. She’d graduated from high school in 2019 and moved to Kabul alone to study for the national Kankur exam during a mandatory one-year period. She later enrolled at Kabul University, proving to herself and her family she could make it on her own, a test-run for college abroad.

“This is what all girls do in Afghanistan when they graduate high school – just stay home and wait for some proposal or something. I just wanted to study. I didn’t want to end up like other girls,” Shukria said.

She was accepted as a computer science major at Asian University for Women in Bangladesh, slated to start in the fall of 2021.

Khadija, another Afghan woman who fled home and wound up at UD, had similar aspirations.

A high school graduate in 2017, Khadija always knew college was in the cards, but she took a four-year hiatus from pursuing higher education to get a job teaching English as a second language to help her family financially.

In preparation for college, she joined a local educational society and began learning English in 2014. Unlike her classmates, Khadija had no desire to attend Kabul University. Instead, her plan involved completing an undergraduate degree outside of Afghanistan before eventually making it to the U.S. for graduate school to receive master’s and doctorate degrees, hopefully through Fulbright or educational grants in Germany and England.

After getting a passport to secure her spot in a university in another country, Khadija was accepted into Asian University for Women in 2021. With only five majors to choose from, she eagerly awaited diving into her bioinformatics classes that fall.

But neither woman got the chance to set foot on campus in Bangladesh.

“So, the plan was to leave Afghanistan in September, but then the Taliban came, like, overnight, very suddenly. And after that, the plan was to get out of Afghanistan,” Khadija said. “I could not imagine if I’m gonna be in Afghanistan because I wouldn’t have the normal life that I had before the Taliban came.”

‘Graveyard of Empires’

Muqtedar Khan, a professor of political science and international relations at UD, said that while the U.S. has been able to bring over some Afghans who aided the U.S. government during its stint in Afghanistan, “others are still there and in really bad shape.” He adds that the Taliban sees these people as enemies for helping the U.S., subsequently hurting U.S. foreign policy and relationships.

Afghanistan is dealing with a humanitarian crisis of hunger along with human rights issues, especially when it comes to women’s freedoms.

Under Taliban rule, higher education has been abolished for women after sixth grade. That means there is nowhere for women to go education- or job-wise afterward and little opportunity aside from marrying and starting a family. Women must also wear a burqa, a garment that covers the entire body from head to toe, with a mesh veil that exposes the eyes and allows the wearer to see only in front of them.

For education-seeking women like Shukria and Khadija, the rapid regression to gendered societal standards left little room for upward mobility.

“The Taliban have a weird and extremely narrow interpretation of Islam. Completely, shall we say, influenced by the local tribal cultures of Afghanistan, in that they provide very little rights to women,” Khan said. “And nobody, no country, has officially recognized Taliban as a government of Afghanistan, so signing treaties, deals, trade, et cetera, have become very difficult.”

The international community has offered to acknowledge the Taliban as a government if three conditions are met:

• Implementing women’s rights
• Creating an inclusive government including other ethnic groups
• Pledging to fight terrorist groups, like ISIS, Al-Qaeda and Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, who have found safe havens in Afghanistan

“Some historians call it the ‘Graveyard of Empires,’” Khan said. “If the Soviet Union and the United States had not intervened, then it would have been a developing country. Maybe not as well off as Bangladesh, but kind of like Bhutan and Nepal.”

Arriving in the US, creating the WISE program

The cabin of the aircraft was dark, swollen with the weight of 700 people breathing the same air, escaping to an unknown land for a better life.

After several days of travel and no clue where she was headed, Khadija finally touched down on U.S. soil in Wisconsin. The next several months involved being shuffled to various military bases until final plans for the refugees solidified.

Khadija had heard about the freedom granted to U.S. citizens. The rights of the people to think what they wanted, of women to go where they pleased, alone or with friends.

“I read and I heard that people are free, but when I came here – when I saw it with my own eyes – I really liked it,” she said. “Everyone respects each other’s opinion or the choice they make. It wouldn’t happen a lot in Afghanistan, especially for women.”

In Newark, English Language Institute professor Scott Stevens reached out to UD’s Provost’s Office to see if it could assist students in Afghanistan impacted by the Taliban takeover. Phone lines began ringing, old connections were tapped, and eventually UD found itself a part of a web of American universities in communication with Asian University for Women to help. The 148 students studying in Afghanistan due to the pandemic, instead of on campus in Bangladesh, fled to America.

Within months, and amid yet another COVID-19 surge, UD and several other schools worked together to place within their campuses the 59 refugees most needing intensive English language preparation. UD welcomed 15 women, the largest chunk of the group, focusing on early career students.

“It was really a very informal beginning and just an impulse of looking at this terrible situation and wanting to help,” said Matt Kinservik, vice provost for faculty affairs at UD and one of the administrators overseeing programming for the Afghan women.

The 15 students who wound up at UD first enrolled in the Pathways program, an English Language Institute endeavor at the university that is open to all international students. It helps them gain their English language competency and cultural understanding before moving into student status and beginning regular coursework. The Afghan women then became Women’s Initiative in Service and Education scholars, a program created specifically for these students that focuses on the unique circumstances that brought them to UD.

“This group of course is different because they went through a very traumatic, collective experience, and they’re unlike other international students. They didn’t apply to UD. They just ended up here,” Kinservik said. “When they left Afghanistan, I think any one of them would tell you that they didn’t imagine they were coming to the United States. … They probably hoped and expected to be much closer to home than they are.”

And then there is the WISE scholars program, which offers academic support and personal support, both through university guidance and a partnership between the ELI and Jewish Family Services of Delaware, the state’s refugee relocation agency.

The initial period of the women’s intake in the ELI was managed through internal university funding, providing them full housing and tuition. After a few months, UD raised money through its fundraising operation to support the women, having raised nearly $210,582 as of July 2024 from 285 donors who heard the cohort’s story and wanted to help. Along with traditional financial aid, these crucial donations help the women pay rent, buy groceries, get new clothes and cover added living expenses most others would be able to rely on family for if needed.

After about a year and a half of the Pathways program and completing their first few course credits, the women began matriculating to UD coursework across three semesters.

Some were ready to start on their degrees in the fall of 2022 while others needed more time. One of the 15 was unable to continue her studies due to the trauma of leaving home, but as of fall semester 2023, the remaining 14 finished their ELI program and were all enrolled full time at UD, ranging from freshmen to graduate students across various disciplines.

After the homestay period, the women moved into local apartment complexes, sharing apartments in small groups and working part-time jobs on or off campus like any other Blue Hens, said Amanda Bullough, a business administration professor. Bullough immediately volunteered to mentor four of the women due to her background in women and gender and experience with Afghan women at her previous university.

Like Kinservik, Bullough and the other mentors have been intricately involved in the day-to-day life of the women. This involves helping them with both the mundane and the unique, like adding a degree minor or, upon request, teaching the women how to swim in the school’s natatorium.

“There’s a learning curve for any new college student when they go away to college,” Bullough said. “And these incredible ladies have had the entire learning curve of leaving their families behind and never knowing when they would be able to see them again and starting off in a whole new country with no support.”

Is it always like this? Examining refugee  resettlement in Delaware

The United Nations High Commission of Refugees defines a refugee as a person “forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country.” The capacity in which JFS Delaware can help refugees in terms of funding and programs depends on if they meet specific requirements and what their situation is, such as being a special immigrant visa holder or being advance-granted asylum.

USA for UNHCR reports as of May 2024 that over 120 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide due to persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violations – the highest levels of displacement on record – as either refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people or those in need of international protection.  Just five countries – Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela, Ukraine and Sudan – make up 73% of all refugees and people in need of international protection.

As one of Delaware’s four resettlement agencies that works with refugees and asylum seekers, JFS is one of the biggest and longest-serving and is no stranger to helping individuals like the Afghan women at UD, said Sophi Namugenyi, chief program officer at JFS.

In recent years, JFS Delaware:

• Welcomed 31 Afghan refugees, 19 adults and 12 children, in 2021 as part of the Afghan Placement Assistance program

• Resettled 14 APA cases and 30 individuals in 2022

• Served 644 clients from 18 countries of origin, including Afghanistan, across five programs

The Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration reports that, as of July 31, 2024, 11,168 Afghans have been admitted to the U.S.

JFS is the first line of defense when it comes to resettlement. However, the agency’s partnerships with local banks, healthcare systems, landlords, community-based medical facilities and more speak to the nature of how all-encompassing this assistance is and how much work goes on behind the scenes. Delaware’s refugee-friendly legislation also paves the way for successful resettlement across the First State.

“The tone is set by local government,” Namugenyi said. “It’s so easy to then get other local partners or other businesses, other landlords, who are so committed to the cause.”

In the past five years, Delaware has received the following funding for refugee cash and medical assistance and refugee social services:

• Fiscal year 2020 saw $28,500 in cash and medical assistance and $70,000 in social services.

• Fiscal year 2021 saw $82,000 in cash and medical assistance and $50,000 in social services.

• Fiscal year 2022 saw $273,022 in cash and medical assistance and $656,395 in social services.

• Fiscal year 2023 saw $531,188 in cash and medical assistance and $1,243,854 in social services.

• Fiscal year 2024 saw $2,781,971 in cash and medical assistance and $244,825 in social services.

The Afghan women at UD came to the U.S. as humanitarian parolees due to the international emergency unfolding in Afghanistan. They aren’t the first group of individuals to seek asylum in the country in this way, but the response of American universities taking them under their wings was a unique solution. It afforded the women many advantages other refugees do not have, said Jenevive Newman, director of the Refugee Integration Support Effort at JFS.

The enrollment level of refugees for higher education in college or university is only 6%, an increase from the 1% documented in recent years, according to USA for UNHCR.

In contrast to the WISE scholars’ streamlined enrollment at UD, most refugees are offered a more basic version of English language instruction and typically must immediately find jobs to begin budgeting to cover their costs once program assistance comes to an end. This results in many refugees being unable to seek higher education until they can afford it, or they’re able to track down previous school transcripts, which can take years.

“These are things that case managers will have to walk them through. Getting admission into higher education is not a walk in the park; it’s a long process for most of our refugees,” Newman said. “So, the UD situation is a very unique situation, and UD was able to work with them and get everything and then we provided the case management support.”

‘I wanna make that kind of difference’

Wearing a hot pink pullover adorned with “Delaware” in cursive, Khadija walked on the Green with a backpack slung over her shoulder, the sun shining on her face.

It’s hard to imagine where she was three years ago, filled with fear of the unknown and adjusting to a new normal. But waiting on the other side was an opportunity she is still relishes.

The rising junior knows that wherever she turns, she’ll be met with the friendly faces of classmates, professors enthused to shape her college experience and an infectious air of ambition.

It reminds her of a story she researched during her time at a military base about a French student who studied at UD, returned home and became mayor. From there, he initiated an exchange program where French students could learn at his alma mater just as he did, and American students could experience France.

“If a miracle happens, if we get rid of Taliban in Afghanistan, I wanna make – even if it’s small – I wanna make that kind of difference if there can be students from Afghanistan, especially women, to come here and I would help them as an alumni at that time,” Khadija said.

“It seems very impossible, but even if it’s impossible, like a dream, I love that.”

For Kinservik and Bullough, the perseverance of the WISE scholars is awe-inspiring. They hope what the program has been able to achieve thus far, the example the Afghan women have set in their ongoing trajectory of achievement, is only the beginning of the university’s role in global issues. They believe it’s a feat that “UD can be proud of for a really long time.”

As Shukria walked aside Khadija, a stranger just three short years ago, she knew that right there on campus is exactly where she’s supposed to be.

“I was just biking and I was just so happy because this is the place that I knew that I could be someone,” she said. “Although it was new for us, it was a new challenge in my life. I liked the challenges.”

In this place, she could pursue her education. In this place, she believed she could do something for her family, maybe for her country.

It’s the reason she got on the plane.

Part 2: ‘It was hard but we did it’: Afghan students who fled Taliban hope to inspire other women