An Afghan man narrated painful story of his mother saying she was married in the age of 13, widowed when she was 18, forced to marry for the second time in the age of 21 and her life came to end at 33.
Amany said he had been in Germany from nearly the past 14 years. In 2009 he first illegally went to Iran from there he crossed into Turkey then Greece, then Italy and after a difficult journey finally he reached Germany. He shared the story of his mother with Wesal TV.
He said his mother Maleka and his father Mohammad Yasin got married in 1985 but his father who was in the military was killed in 1988.
Hailing from the Syedabad district of Maidan Wardak province, during their childhood they lived in Kabul and after the death of his father their uncle took his small sister and brother to Maidan Wardak so that he and his mother should also go there, when they reached Wardak effort was made to force his mother marry for the second time.
He said after three months he and his mother had to go to their village.
Amani added: “When we reached our ancestral house, we saw my sister and brother playing in the mud and their faces, hands were dirty and cracks emerged on their legs and hands skin, when we entered home, my mother cried, took warm water and washed my sister and brother and applied oil on their hands and feet. Uncle had already found people to marry my mother to them on the same night, the information was shared with my mother by our uncle’s elder wife late in the afternoon, my mother prepared for the knife, stick and axe, they brought all three of them to our bedroom – which was called uncle’s guest house – and put the boxes behind the doors, that night my mother, me, uncle’s elder wife and uncle’s elder son guarded the room like trench. When people from my uncle side came they said that the lady is very attentive tonight and they could not achieve their goal.”
He said the next morning his mother wanted to go back to Kabul but his uncle stopped her.
He said: “My uncle separated us from our mother and started beating her but my mother went outside and called on people to help her, local people gathered and shouted at our uncle and forced him to allow us, we also tried to rescue our mother.”
“My mother went to her own relatives and complained, they try to teach his uncle a lesson but he was not at home and they also came to Kabul the next morning,” said Amani.
Maidan Wardak: Domestic violence in village
He said when in 1992 there was civil war in Kabul they were forced to go back to Maidan Wardak.
He said: “We spent few nights and then one of the nights we found there was noise in the courtyard. My mother asked others why there is noise they said that people came with weapons to get their loan from our uncle but suddenly an elderly man along with our uncle came to our room and congratulated my mother for her new marriage.”
“My mother cried and said I don’t want to get married, she told my uncle to refrain from marrying her for the sake of his dead late brother but he replied that now bushes had came out on the grave of his brother, that movement I can never forget . We all cried but the wrong tradition of our society forced us to be silent.”
They were left with uncle and his mother was married to a tailor who was deaf and disabled by one leg and they had to separated from their mother for eight years.
He said after his mother marriage when they got dispute with anyone so they receive massages like: “Go and free your mother from your uncle.”
His new father-in-law of his mother after 1-year convinced his uncle to allow them to meet their mother.
He recalled when they entered the new house of their mother she cried a lot and washed their faces and hands and give them the mother love.
Amany said they spent 13 days with their mother and then returned to their uncle’s house which was like prison for them.
Pakistan: Heavy labor in childhood
He said later on his uncle migrated to the Muslim Bagh area in Quetta Pakistan and took them as well. He started work with a rich family there against 8,000 Pakistani Rupee.
After sometimes he narrated his story to that family and they adopted him like a family member and hired another person for the work.
One day he went to Quetta from Muslim Bagh and saw his step father in the old bus station that made him surprised.
Amani said after recognizing his mothers husband so he was able to again see his mother and started living with her. In addition, he started tailoring work in the shop of his step father.
Amany said his small brother and sister remained with his uncle and his mother was not allowed to meet them.
They were treated badly in their uncle house and one day he and his mother went to their uncle house to see his brother and sister.
Initially, his uncle agreed to let his small brother and sister go with them but later he refused and they went to the house of an influential Afghan person and told him the story.
Tribal elders decision was in their favor and they manage to get them out of his uncle house for ever.
Iran: life in exile
In year 2,000, Mohamad Nasir Amany was 13 years old when his mother, siblings and step father went to Iran from Pakistan due to economic hardships.
After arriving in Iranshahr, his stepfather was arrested by Iranian police and captivated by smugglers in a house for 15 days, from where he managed to escape.
Amani says they were facing severe economic problems and he went to several cities to work, but because he was a child, he was not given work in construction projects.
He says: “After 10 months, I started working as an apprentice in a store in Tehran and at that time I was paid 30,000 tomans a month. I also became a smoker, but thanks God, after two years of doing sports and with the help of mother, I stopped smoking.”
In 2005, his mother and stepfather came to Kabul to participate in a wedding ceremony but her mother fell sick.
When he arrived in Kabul to inquire after the health of his mother his grandfather told him that his mother had passed away.
“My mother breathed last when she was 33, I lost parents when I was 19, my sister was 18 and my brother was 17.”
He said the life stories of most Afghans are similar full of sorrow and difficulties they witnessed similar problems which he, his mother and siblings went. Amany hoped that wrong tradition in society would eradicate and women would be able to get their due rights.
After the death of his mother, Amany turned to hard labor in Iran and took care of his sister and brother. Only bones remained under his skin. He says: “For nine hours a day, I would dig deep wells in Iran ito eke out a living.”
Civil activities in Germany
Amany says in 2009, he went to Turkey on smuggling route, then to Greece in wind boats, then to Italy in cargo trucks and finally reached Germany.
He adds: “First, I learned German language, then I gained knowledge about the tradition and basic laws of Germany. Then I found a job in a McDonald’s fast-food restaurant from 2011 to 2016.
Amany says after 2016, he had two jobs at the same time, and he was a social service worker in an organization for refugees and he also continued his work as an interpreter, until 2020 he was an interpreter in various government agencies in Germany.
He says from 2020 to 2022, he worked as a government servant in Munich in the field of social services, and he is still engaged in a two-year Information and Technology (IT) education and sometimes works as an interpreter.
Amany says: “I studied social sciences, I also worked officially in Munich, Germany for two years in the field of social services, and I also speak five languages (Dari, Farsi, Pashto, Urdu or Hindi and German). I am also an interpreter and now I am pursuing a two-year course of higher education in the field of IT and computer.
Amany married his cousin Nadia in June 04,2012. They have two children – a 9-year-old Sana who is in third grade and a six-year-old son (Milad) who is in kindergarten. The couple and their children have retained their Afghan citizenship and are also German citizens.
He says: “I love my wife and children very much and we have a very happy life.”
He completed his studies in social sciences, worked at different organisations in Germany and recently started awakening efforts for Afghans on social media which received a warm welcome.
“I started work as a civil society activist on social media, which had a very positive impact on our society, for example, justice for Martyr Farkhunda, a campaign for social reforms, a campaign for preventing the genocide of Hazara, there are many campaigns for the national flag, national views and national personalities. I personally started some of these campaigns and had been part of others,” he explains.
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