Name: Angelina

Profile: Hazara girl from Afghanistan, living in Indonesia.

Advantages: UN-certified, excellent English skills, former refugee representative, volunteer interpreter, teacher and mentor, FULLY FUNDED.

Risk: At risk of being tortured and killed by her step-father and the Taliban if returned home.

Canadian contact: Stephen Watt

Angelina was a child when she witnessed her mother’s murder by her stepfather. She was left alone there at the hand of her mother’s murderer who kept Angelina like a servant. Her step-father then wanted to get her married to an old man or else, he would kill Angelina. She had no other way but to escape from there and find a safe place.

Luckily, she made it to Indonesia in 2016 where she has been volunteering as an interpreter, teacher and mentor. Her only hope is to be sponsored to a safe country like Canada where she can pursue her education, contribute to the community and live with freedom.

My Life in Afghanistan

Before I was born, my father passed away due to suffering from cancer. My mother was then kicked out of home by my paternal uncle. Due to not having any place to go, she went door to door to seek shelter for a while.

During those times, my mother met a married man who showed sympathy to her when she was pregnant and did not have a place to stay. Then that man gave my mother shelter until she delivered her baby, me in January 1992 in the Jaghori district. The man then proposed to my mother to marry him. Since my mother did not have any place to stay, she accepted the proposal for my sake.

The Death of my Mother

Although I was a child, I still remember that my mother was always being verbally abused and taunted by my stepmother. In the absence of my step-father, she had power at home and she did not give us food to eat and a proper place to sleep on. My mother and I were always eating leftover food.

My mother never spent a happy moment there, but she was bearing every difficult situation just for me. She used to tell me.

“If I leave this house, I will have no other place to go and an income to feed you.”

One day afternoon, my step-father had gone farming when my step-mother and mother started arguing. They were not finished fighting when suddenly my step-father returned home. He was a very rough man and after getting angry, he scolded both of them.

He then kicked his first wife and told her to leave. Then he started beating my mother with a spade in his hand.

“My mother fell after he hit the spade on her head and she never woke up. I was only 7 years old.”

After my mother’s death, my step-parents were always keeping me inside the house fearing that I would tell others about what they had done to my mother. My step-parents also threatened me not to tell anyone about the incident.

On the other hand, it was the time for me to go to school and get an education but I was kept at home despite doing nothing wrong. I had step-siblings who had been going to school. Since I had an excessive interest in studying, I always insisted and plead with my step-father to let me go to school.

I remember that I had to do whatever I was told by my step-parents because I did not want to get killed like my mother. I had to do the whole family’s laundry, do the dishes after meals and clean the house. Also, I had to feed livestock and clear the animal’s warehouse. Whenever there was any guest in the house, I was not allowed to welcome the guest to have a conversation, because they were afraid of me revealing the incident that happened to my mother.

“I even do not know where my mother was buried.”

Later on, my step-father moved the whole family to Kabul where nothing changed for me. I still had to stay locked in the house. Since I was extremely enthusiastic about getting an education, I was always seeking a good opportunity. When my step-father was in a good mood, I tried to convince him to allow me to go to school, and he permitted me after I promised him that I would never tell anyone about the incident and I would keep doing all the house chores and everything they told me to do. Since going to school meant spending half of the day there, I was only allowed to go to the English learning class for one hour a day, so that I could have time to do the house chores as well.

Going to School and Finding my Long-lost Sister

My daily activity was the same except for one hour of attending the English class at the Star Educational Centre in Kabul, Afghanistan. I was an intermediate student of my time.

My teacher was from Pakistan and was very kind. I learned from her how to be brave and fight for my rights. She taught me the importance of education in our daily life. She always asked me about my family, but I was afraid to tell her more. One day, she asked me if I had any sisters and I said yes. I remembered my mother had told me once that I had one elder sister who got separated and my mother did not know where she was. My teacher told me that one of her friends who was living in Pakistan looked like me. She then showed me her picture. Another day, she connected me with her friend using a cell phone and she turned out to be my long-lost sister.

“Eventually, I had found someone of my own in this world. I shared everything with my elder sister that had happened to our mother.”

It was 2013 or 2014 when my sister moved to Australia. I had been wanting to meet her but she went too far from me. She then bought me a cellphone with the help of my teacher. Since then, we were in contact with each other. Since I was sharing everything with her, she was very worried for me and she was finding a way to get me out of Afghanistan.

Street Harassment

Most of the time, I was getting harassed by some males on the way to my learning centre. I could not tell my step-parents as well because I knew the consequence of telling them would stop me from going to the learning centre. I was always carrying stones in my bag instead of books because I could use the stones to defend myself from those who were blocking my way and bullying me.

One day I was returning home and I noticed a tall and unmannered boy following me. As he was coming after me, he was also mumbling in his mouth and using bad words about me.

“The stone and roughness in the backpack represented the role of mother and father to me. With these stones, I felt somewhat safe from the path I was passing, but I was still scared every time I passed by.”

Harassed by my Step-Father

I can never forget those times when my step-father harassed me while finding me alone. He used to touch me improperly without my permission. One day, he came to my room, sat next to me and tried to touch my body, but I ran away. As I was stepping out of the room, he threw the cattle filled with the boiled water after me and the cattle hit my left leg. It burned me from the knee to the ankle and I still have bruises on my calf muscle.

“I was very afraid of him. Every time he was coming near me, I used to run away.”

One other time, I was wearing a dress after taking shower and suddenly, my step-father entered the room. I ran to the door and screamed, but he held my hand. During that time, the door got closed on my hand and the handle of the door went into my elbow. My hand started bleeding and I was crying. Then next moment, I opened my eyes and found myself lying on the bed in the hospital. I had gotten unconscious and my hand was bandaged. After coming home, even though I had a big wound on my left elbow, I had to do the house chores to make myself busy and stay awake.

“I was very scared and I thought he would do something bad to me if I slept.”

Escaping to Safety

Due to several reasons, my sister helped me to escape from my step-father’s house. As I was growing up my step-father was forcing me to marry his friend, who was working in the government at that time. He was an old man. He usually visits our house. My stepfather was calling him Saranwal Sahib. My step-father was beating me day and night wanting me to marry his friend but, I did not want. My stepfather warns me that I have two ways 1. Marry to his friend or 2. My step-father would kill me like the way he killed my mother. I was very scared and I shared this with my sister, she soon arranged for my document with help of the smuggler to come to Indonesia.

“The street harassment, the house violence, the death of my father, and the incident that happened to my mother made me so strong and gave me the courage to escape from home and find a safe place where I can fully experience my basic human rights and be able to live my life like any other human being.”

From Afghanistan to Indonesia

Due to several reasons, my sister helped me escape from my step-father’s house. As I was growing up my step-father was forcing me to marry his friend, who was working in the government at that time. He was an old man and he usually visited our house. My stepfather was calling him Saranwal Sahib. Since I refused to marry his friend, my step-father beat me for days and nights and threatened me to marry that old man. He gave me two choices. Those were to marry his friend or else he would kill me like he had killed my mother. I was very scared and shared this with my sister. She soon arranged for a people smuggler who then arranged my travel documents to take me to a safe place.

On March 17, 2016, I escaped from my step-father’s home and fled to New Delhi, India where I stayed for 4 days. On March 21, I went to Malaysia by plane and stayed there for 5 days. The most dangerous part of my travel started when I was taken to Indonesia. I was told by the people smuggler that I would be traveling with some other families but he had lied to me. There were only two of us, I and the people smuggler. It was midnight when the people smuggler was taking me to the boat through the jungle. I was very scared of the sounds of animals, and water that were coming from around the forest. On the other hand, due to the darkness, I was feeling like there was someone else following us, and the whole way, I was looking around with fear.

On the hand, I could not ask any questions from the people smuggler because I did not know his language, so I used to speak in sign language. Since I had suffered from harassment, I was very afraid of being harassed again.

“On the way, the people smuggler held my hand and I went to flashback and thought it was my step-father who had harassed me many times.”

I shouted and then the people smuggler scolded me to keep quiet or else, the guards would hear us. I was then taken to a boat where five people smuggler who were males and one Indonesian girl was with me. As a single Afghan girl who for the first time got on the boat, I was very scared.

In the morning, we arrived in a city in Indonesia, and from there, I was taken to Jakarta which took three nights and four days to arrive by car on March 30, 2016.

Life in Indonesia

On April 4, 2016, I registered myself with the UNHCR. Since then, I have had counseling many times and asked the UNHCR to resettle me to a third country, but the UNHCR told me not to expect them to send me to any other country.

My sister applied for my sponsorship to Australia, but I got rejected by the Immigration of Australia. They said that my case is strong but, Australia does not have enough capacity for me. I am alone here and have no one to support me. While living as a refugee, I have faced many challenges during these six years in Indonesia. I have suffered from psychological problems and physical issues and have been depressed all the time.

Helping Others

Despite facing many restrictions and challenges, I never gave up. I am determined to not let this situation be an obstacle to my self-development and my passion to contribute to my community. I have been always motivated to assist the work of refugee aid organizations such as JRS Indonesia, Catholic Relief Services, and Church World Service. Since language is the barrier between the refugee community and the aid workers from humanitarian organizations, I have been helping them as an interpreter to ease the communication between both groups.

I am fluent in 5 languages, including Hazaragi, Farsi, Dari, Urdu and English. Also, I have a basic understanding of Bahasa Indonesia. To support my interpreting ability, I have actively participated in various capacity-building activities, such as interpretation training, and research methodology training held by Roshan and Trisakti University. I have officially become a Community Interpreter at the UNHCR From April 2020 till now.

Through this voluntary work, I have been able to help in easing access to information concerning maternal and reproductive health problems in women in refugee communities, mitigate misunderstandings between locals and refugees, as well as take a role in interpreting UNCHR-funded briefings on an important issue that is often faced by the women in the community, namely sexual and gender-based violence.

Moreover, I was elected as a refugee representative for 3 years to help the refugee community and the organization disseminate the message of the UNHCR to refugees, help the new arrivals to find a cheaper house for rent, help the refugees to find access to education with the help of UNHCR, and help toy drive organizer to distribute toys to hundreds of refugee children from a different community.

“My drive to serve has led me to several volunteering activities outside my formal duties at the UNHCR such as, mentoring two unaccompanied children for almost a year, and teaching English to three old ladies from my refugee community in my place.”

My passion for learning got me to also train as an assistant at SELESA Kitchen for seven months with the support of the UNHCR. There, I became a Chef assistant and after that, I was moved to the front to serve the guests as a waiter.

The Last Word!

Angelina dreams to pursue her education and become a public speaker one day so that she shares her story to hopefully inspire people to persevere in times of hardships.

There is a way for her to make her dream come true by being sponsored to Canada.

As a UNHCR refugee, Angelina is eligible for Canada’s private sponsorship program. She needs a group of five Canadian friends to support her. Another good thing about her is that she is FULLY FUNDED.

To help support her as a sponsor, please contact Stephen Watt on Facebook.

You can also reach out to Angelina directly on Facebook .

Reach out and discover how wonderful it is to privately sponsor a good person to start a new life – with your help – in Canada!

Thank you for your support. And help spread the word by sharing this post!