When I ask 13-year-old Nafisa* why she has never been to school, her answer is simple.
“Because I was afraid,” she says, squinting at me in the bright September light. “Because we were all afraid of the Taliban.”
This month marks two years since the Taliban banned girls from secondary education in Afghanistan. The hardline Islamist regime is the only administration in the world that excludes girls from high school.
Shortly before the fall of Kabul and the exit of the US-led regime in August 2021, the Taliban killed Nafisa’s brother, aunt, and grandparents. Living in constant fear, her parents made the difficult decision to flee their home and take their seven children on the notoriously dangerous journey to Europe in search of a better life.
Forced to sell all their possessions, they travelled for almost three years through Iran and Turkey, before following the well-worn and treacherous path across the Aegean Sea in a dinghy to the shores of the Greek island of Lesvos.
“We capsized many times,” Nafisa’s father Aamir* tells me. “We almost drowned. But God helped us. I had to save my children.”
Four months ago, Nafisa finally set foot in a classroom for the first time in her life. But, unlike millions of her peers across the world, this was not in a school building. Rather, Nafisa’s first experience of education was in a dimly-lit portacabin in Mavrovouni refugee camp, where she sits today.
The portacabin is one of six that make up a small education centre in the camp. From 8 am, a steady stream of children come and go, giggling, playing and riding bikes up and down the dusty path that leads in and out of the makeshift school. Set up as part of a UNICEF-funded initiative, All Children Education (ACE), the centre provides informal education to around 100 refugee children in Mavrovouni.
“It’s very difficult for girls to go to school in Afghanistan,” Nafisa says. “I always dreamt of having access to school when I was at home, in my country. But girls didn’t have the right to go.”
In the months after the Taliban completed their takeover of Afghanistan, the regime swiftly began rolling back hard-won women’s rights. Last December, it dealt a new blow by imposing an indefinite ban on women attending university. Further restrictions on access to public spaces, gyms and beauty salons, working in local and non-governmental organisations and studying abroad quickly followed.
“[Before coming to the education centre], I only ever learnt to read and write in Dari,” Nafisa says. “I’ve never studied any other subjects.”
“When I first enrolled here, I was so happy because I was finally able to go to school,” she continues, a smile breaking across her face. “I’m learning languages at the moment, which I have never done. Sometimes I even help people in class, which makes me happy.”
Lesvos’ fertile soil has long provided a breeding ground for women’s education and emancipation. The verdant island is steeped in feminist history, best known for thousands of years as the birthplace of the ancient Greek poetess Sappho, becoming a site of pilgrimage for women across the world.
Now, however, it is the growing refugee crisis in Europe that consistently sees the island hitting the headlines. The main landing place for refugees passing through Turkey, Lesvos became most notorious for being home to Moria, dubbed the “worst refugee camp in the world”. Squalid, overcrowded and rat-infested, the barbed wire-enclosed facility was completely gutted in a fire in 2020, which saw thousands of refugees forced to sleep on the roads, hungry and thirsty, with no medical care.
A 10-minute drive from the island’s capital Mytilene, Mavrovouni was initially established as a temporary response to Moria’s destruction. Three years on, it is home to around 3,000 refugees, the majority of them from Afghanistan. Open to the Aegean on one side, a steady sea breeze wafts through the camp as residents walk to and from the gym, hairdresser and communal toilets, while children play and fish on the warm water’s edge.
We follow Nafisa up the dusty path leading to her home inside the camp. Cushions line the floor of a small room that she shares with her seven siblings and parents. The facilities are basic, and the room is cramped – a triple bunk bed almost reaches the room’s low ceilings, and the sounds of Burna Boy and Ed Sheeran blare from the neighbouring containers.
“I’m happy that we’re living here, I’m happy to be in Greece,” Nafisa tells me. It is here in the camp, with the help of the education centre, that she has found her passion.
“I want to be a cardiologist,” she says. “Someone in my family has a heart problem, and I’d like to help. I want to be able to contribute to society, to choose my job. I used to think I couldn’t choose my occupation, that I would be an illiterate woman. But now I can work in a job that I choose and that I like.”
Women and girls are like birds in a cage
It is estimated than one million girls are affected by the Taliban’s ban on education, although around five million were out of school before the the regime’s takeover due to a lack of facilities.
“Unfortunately, in our country women and girls are like birds in a cage,” says Malalai, a teacher based in Kabul who lost her job when girls were banned from school. “Every human being has dreams, but in Afghanistan, with the closure of schools, beauty parlours, stopping women from working, it’s hard for us to dream.”
“The girls here are very tired mentally and physically, very depressed, because their future in Afghanistan is unknown,” she tells me. “Unfortunately, with this government, this regime, I don’t think it’s going to get better. But we are not hopeless, we are still fighting.”
For eight-year-old Zahra*, the memories of these dark days are still vivid.
“We would constantly hear shootings,” she tells me. “People there [in Afghanistan] were telling us we couldn’t go to school, they weren’t letting us. I don’t want to go back.”
Zahra arrived at Mavrovouni two months ago with her parents and her two siblings, after a three-year-long journey spanning four different countries. At times, the family walked for days at a time, their feet swollen and painful.
“It’s a very good environment here,” she says of the education centre. “The teachers are very good, and they explain things in an easy way.”
“Most of [the children in the centre] are behind because they were deprived of their early years of education,” says Myrsini Papanagiotou, a teacher working for METAdrasi, a Greek NGO which runs the classes at the centre. “When they left their countries, they were young or there was war, and during that period they weren’t able to attend classes. So they cannot write, they cannot read very well.”
For many girls, this gap in their education has been compounded by societal stigma and gender norms discouraging women from pursuing academia.
“In the beginning when they come here, the girls are a bit shy,” Myrsini tells me. “They’re a bit embarrassed sometimes, afraid to express their opinions. But…we encourage them to speak, to express themselves, and gradually they gain self-confidence.”
“[The centre] is very important because this is their first impression of Europe and they have come here for a better life,” says Myrsini. “Here they realise that they can have opportunities, choices, and be free”.
If Zahra was lacking in confidence when she arrived at the camp, it is certainly impossible to tell now. Full of energy, she runs around the portacabins, impatiently waiting for her turn to be interviewed. “Wow, so beautiful!” she says excitedly, peering into our camera’s viewfinder to look at a picture of herself.
They have a chance at life
“In the first few years, we noticed that families preferred to keep girls at home,” says Dionysis Pavlou, Refugee Education Coordinator for the Greek Ministry of Education. “There was discrimination. But I don’t notice that so much lately – mostly, if people have kids that they want to register in the education hub they tend to register them all.”
But, despite its positive impacts, the teachers at the centre are under no illusion that it can – or should – be a substitute for formal education.
“Of course, the children should be in education while they wait [for] their [asylum] cases to finish,” says Yiota Gkrintzou, another teacher at the centre. “But it’s more important [for them to be in] schools out of the refugee camp because this would better affect their development, and they can be part of society.”
And while many of the issues that blighted Moria have been resolved, life in the camp is certainly not conducive to studying.
The only way to access food is to wait in line for hours, often in the searing heat. Frequent power cuts disrupt day-to-day admin, and violent outbreaks remain a problem.
“It’s very difficult here,” Aamir tells me. “My son waits in line from 10 am to 1.30 pm to get food. It’s noisy all the time, and there are often fights. I can’t sleep at night, I stay up and worry about protecting my family – we just don’t feel safe.”
The long-term aim of the ACE programme is to enroll children in the camps into the formal schooling system in Greece. But an influx of refugees to the camp in the last year has led to huge oversubscription.
“We have over 600 children in the camp, and the programme has a capacity of about 200,” Dionysis says. “A couple of years ago, when kids arrived it would be the next day that they’d be in [formal] school. But because of Covid, there were far fewer people coming. Now it takes months.”
Still, it is evident that the centre provides a ray of hope for girls whose lives thus far have been fragmented and bleak.
“Non-formal education centres in refugee camps provide children with a safe environment to learn and grow,” says Aspa Plakantonaki, Deputy Representative for UNICEF Greece. “Children often get their first experience of education in these centres and a sense of normalcy of going to school and simply being a child.”
“Being here at our school, [the children] learn to dream again,” Myrsini tells me, smiling. “So far, their only concern has been their survival. But now, they can dream, they can express what they want – they can have a chance at life.”
When I ask Zahra what her dream is, her response is instantaneous.
“A teacher!” she says, her face lighting up. “I want to be a teacher. Because when I have children, I want to be able to teach them things too. I want them to learn.”
*Some names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees
How can I help?
You can donate to UNICEF’s Children’s Emergency Fund here. A donation of £10 could provide exercise books for 25 children, helping them to continue their education in times of crisis.
