Fatima* is a Christian convert who faces deportation from Pakistan to Afghanistan at the end of this month.
As a convert from Islam and an ethnic minority, with a husband who worked alongside American forces, Fatima and her young family face almost certain death if they are returned to Afghanistan.
She has applied to the Australian Government for a Refugee and Humanitarian Processing (Class XB) Visa and is currently awaiting a response.
Fatima grew up in one of the poorest regions of Afghanistan, where the population eked out an existence as farmers on the poverty line. Every spring, Fatima says, nomadic raiders known as Kochis would attack her village, destroying homes, burning food and stealing livestock such as sheep, goats and cows.
Hazaras like Fatima are among the most persecuted ethnic groups in Afghanistan.
She says: “These Kochis consider my people to be kāfir (non-believers) and according to them they can do whatever they want with us, including killing, enslaving or marrying without any permission.”
When the Taliban seized control of Kabul in 1996, Hazara groups fought against them.
Two years later when the Taliban prevailed, their retaliation was brutal.
Hazarajat (the Hazara homeland) was cut off from the rest of the world, the Taliban even preventing the UN from delivering food to provinces like the one where Fatima grew up.
Fatima recalls: “Our family lived in Afghanistan until the Taliban attacked our village and requested bribes from my father for different things. The Taliban used whatever force they could in order to humiliate the ethnic minority (Hazaras)—my family included.
“They imprisoned and tortured my father. To this day my father has the bullet scars in his back where they shot him with their guns. My little brother was beaten up; his right arm was broken by the Taliban.”
Fatima’s family fled to Pakistan in 1998. Fatima, along with her sister Jamila*, is still living there. As refugees, they are unable to move freely, and struggle to work due to their lack of legal documentation.
Fatima’s other sister Maryam* was able to come to Australia in 2015, two years after she was injured in a bomb blast while shopping for vegetables. At least 33 Hazaras were killed (including nine women and four children), and more than 70 seriously injured in the June 2013 attack, believed to have been carried out by Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists.
Fatima’s husband also has reason to fear the Taliban, as he worked with a security firm in Afghanistan which carried out contract work for the US Department of Defense. Fatima believes that the Taliban are actively searching for him:
“I am fearful for our lives because of the work that we did. Extreme Muslims do not like the West because they think it turns people away from Islam and they despise the ‘corrupt’ culture it brings. My husband’s name is known to the Taliban for associating and aiding the Western project. He is seen as a traitor of Islam according to the Taliban.
“The Taliban is now the government in Afghanistan. They will not protect us if we return to the country. They know both of our names and are looking to kill us. They follow extreme Islamic law that puts our lives in imminent threat.”
In 2023 Fatima’s son was kidnapped for over three months. The unknown assailants asked him about his father and financial status, eventually releasing him in an unfamiliar region of Islamabad Pakistan, 800km away from home. Fatima says she received no help from the authorities during this time.
But now Fatima has another reason to fear the reprisals of the Taliban: in 2023, she converted to Christianity.
Under the Taliban’s interpretation of Sharia law, it is illegal for anyone born Muslim to become a Christian. The crime of “apostasy” is punishable by death by beheading for men, and life imprisonment for women.
Fatima’s sister Jamila had already converted, and Fatima remembers her own initial reaction:
“Jamila invited me to become a Christian. Upon hearing this I rejected her and told her to never come back to our home because she was an infidel. This had brought great shame on us in our culture and religion.
“But Jamila’s response was unusual to me. She apologised and treated me kindly. I asked her so many questions and she always would smile at me. She shared God’s truth and the reality of life and she told me that in Jesus Christ, we can live with God forever.”
Fatima and her husband were baptised secretly by members of an underground church in Pakistan. Although the law is less clear than in Afghanistan, former Muslims who convert to Christianity still face the threat of discrimination and reprisals.
Now Fatima and Jamila have been told by the Pakistan Government that they and their families will be deported to Afghanistan by 31 March 2025. They are terrified.
“We fear that our family, the government, and any other extreme Muslim that knows our faith in Jesus or involvement with the West will kill us if we return to Afghanistan.
“I am very scared of the Taliban as they know about us and have persecuted Hazara people for a long time. They do not allow girls’ education and freedom and I fear for my daughter that she would be forced to marry.
“My sons would be persecuted because they are Hazara. I do not follow the religious teachings of the Taliban which will make my family and I a target. I have no doubt that if we were forced to return my daughter would be married off to a Taliban member.
“We all have targets on our backs, we are seen as great enemies to the Taliban. We are in danger, we cannot return, and we cannot live in limbo here.”
*Names changed due to safety concerns