She has supported me a lot. My family and I spent 7.5 years in the asylum center, and even during Covid. I wasn’t doing well at all. She continuously encouraged me to go to the musical event on Thursdays that took place in the park behind the asylum seekers’ center. I didn’t feel like it, but I did it for her sake.

I am shy. I had never sung for anyone, not even my husband. I used to sing when I was home alone. On that Thursday I didn’t want to sing. But then an Afghan girl sang a song and she didn’t know it by heart. I came to her rescue. Then Rian* heard me and wouldn’t let me go until I started singing. She hasn’t let go of me since then.

Without the support and sacrifice of my husband, I would not have been able to grow so fondly with music. I am very lucky with him and he is proud of me. It is still very rare that an Afghan man is so free-thinking and accepts progress from women, even here in the Netherlands.

The dream of freedom for women in Afghanistan is now further away than ever. But here too there is still a lot to fight for the emancipation of Afghan (and Iranian and Arab) women. I would like to take the choir to so many places where we can surprise people, where perhaps an Afghan woman is exposed to singing and realizes that this is possible. Or an Afghan man who realizes that he can be a support instead of an obstacle in the way of women’s passion and desire.

*Rian is a musician and one of the hosts who leads weekly music evenings at the three asylum seekers’ centers of the municipality of Utrecht.