“Left out here and driven away from there” — this old Dari proverb describes a person who has been rejected from both sides, meaning they can neither stay in the first place nor be accepted in the second. For 20-year-old Yasna, a young Afghan woman, and hundreds of thousands of other Afghan people who fled Afghanistan for Iran and other neighboring countries, this ancient proverb has become a painful reality as they now face deportation.
The Taliban’s Gender Apartheid
After the Taliban’s 2021 resurgence, they banned secondary schools for girls in Afghanistan. This marked the initial base of establishing what has now become a full Gender Apartheid system in Afghanistan. The rulers of the country gradually and systematically targeted and restricted women over the past four years.
“I love my country, however it is like a cage for me. All schools, institutes and universities are closed. All my dreams remained dreams,” Yasna says.
Yasna’s Story: A Family’s Impossible Choice
Yasna’s family fled to Iran some months after the Taliban regained control of the country.
Yasna was in grade 12 at school when the Taliban took over. Her elder sister was studying psychology at university, and her two younger sisters were in grades 8 and 4. In a family where the majority of the children are women and girls, Yasna’s mother tried her best to convince her husband to immigrate to Iran, to change the destiny of her daughters and to prevent them from having a future like her own — one defined by illiteracy.
The Scale of the Crisis
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported on X that “Over 2.3 million Afghans have returned from Iran and Pakistan this year—many under pressure, and to a country unprepared to receive them.”
Yasna’s family decided to return to their home country after the recent deportation started. The family was worried that they might face cruel treatment by the Iranian government and be forcibly deported.
The Burden of Hospitality
Iran, as one of Afghanistan’s neighboring countries, has hosted millions of Afghan refugees for decades. However, Afghan refugees are often perceived by the Iranian government and parts of society as a burden or source of problems. This perception has intensified as economic pressures mount, leading to increased hostility and calls for mass deportations despite the dangerous conditions refugees would face upon return to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
The ancient Dari proverb that opens this commentary was never meant to describe an entire generation. Yet today, hundreds of thousands of Afghans like Yasna and her family embody this impossible position—unwelcome in countries of refuge, unsafe in their homeland. As the international community watches, these refugees face a choice that is no choice at all: return to a country where half the population is systematically erased from public life, or endure deportation and persecution abroad. Until the world recognizes that refugees fleeing gender apartheid deserve protection, not deportation, the proverb will continue to define countless Afghan lives caught between two rejections.
The author of this article, an Afghan legal scholar, cannot presently be identified due to fears for their security.
