6/14/2019- Stockholm,Sweden.
Nineteen-year-old Sara has received her deportation order to Afghanistan and has appealed to the European Court of Justice. The court’s decision is binding for the Swedish state, and she is now waiting for their decision.
She was married off in Afghanistan at the age of fteen. She went against her family when she left her husband and came to Sweden. Sara has also left the Islamic faith and is now an atheist, which is punished by death in Afghanistan.
Sara told the Migration Board that she had received threats from both her own and her husband’s family. “Of course my family will punish me. Right now, I have brought shame to my entire family.”
Afghanistan is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for women. Violence against girls and women committed in the name of protecting the family’s honour is viewed as a private matter. Living in a sheltered accommodation in Sweden has saved her and she has discovered a different world. One of the most important things she has learned, she says, is that here in Sweden women and men are equal. Photo:Åke Ericson