The stories of Afghan women rebuilding their lives in Portugal show the resilience, creativity, and hope refugees bring to new communities. For Permaculture for Refugees (P4R), this highlights the importance of empowering agency, fostering skills, and creating spaces where people can contribute and thrive. Like permaculture systems, integration grows strongest when it’s adaptive, collaborative, and rooted in respect, dignity, and mutual support. Small interventions – gardens, workshops, or shared projects—can seed autonomy, connection, and lasting impact. Read the full article from national newspaper in Portugal.
Between Exile and Belonging: Afghan Women Rebuild Life in Portugal
By Norina Sohail
On a cloudy afternoon in Lisbon, a young Afghan woman sits at a café terrace, cupping her hands around a glass of mint tea. It’s a quiet moment — a rare one. She is surrounded by the chatter of a language she’s still learning, in a country she didn’t choose, dreaming of a home that no longer exists.
Tajala Abidi didn’t plan to stay in Portugal. Before the Taliban returned in 2021, she wanted to study abroad and return to help rebuild Afghanistan. But everything collapsed in hours. “I got a call at noon and was told to leave by 2 p.m. I left alone, with strangers, crossing into Pakistan under gunfire. They said it was Taliban fighting with ISIS. We were thinking of survival.”
She is not alone in her story. Like her, dozens of Afghan women — students, activists, mothers have found refuge in Portugal since the fall of Kabul. They came via humanitarian corridors, EU relocation schemes, or family reunification programs. Their paths are different, but their truths echo to one another.
A new country, a new terrain
The journey didn’t end at the airport.
Portugal is one of Europe’s more welcoming countries, offering 18 months of support – housing, a small stipend, language classes — to refugees. But time runs out quickly, and integration runs much deeper than paperwork.
“When we arrived, we didn’t know the language, the systems, even in daily basic needs like shopping I have struggled with language,” says Laila Letafat, 27, a former Ministry of Education employee who fled to Iran before reaching Portugal. “Even before the Taliban, Afghan women needed to fight just to ride a bicycle or wear the cloth that they liked. Here, I can do it any time — but I still feel I’m learning how to exist.”
Language is a recurring wall. “We had classes, but the teacher would skip lessons,” says Massoma Hussiany, 29 years old, a peace activist from Behsud province of Afghanistan who arrived in Portugal with her husband and baby daughter after months of fear in Pakistan. “Without language, we feel powerless — in hospitals, at work, even at the supermarket.”
Bureaucratic hurdles weigh heavily. Sajeda Amiry, 23, came straight from Kabul to join a master’s program in engineering. “I started mid-semester, without Portuguese. Some teachers helped. Others ignored me completely.”
Where freedom has a face
In conversations across Lisbon and Leiria the women speak often of one word: freedom. Not as an idea — but as something they can finally touch.
“In Afghanistan, not wearing a scarf was a dream. Here, it’s a right,” says Massoma. She chose to remove scarf because she did not like it. “I want the wind to touch my hear and I feel it” adds Massoma.
Tajala’s definition of freedom has also evolved. “It means being able to study art, speak freely, love who you want — all without fear. In Kabul, they called these ‘misuses’ of freedom. Here, I’m learning they’re simply… normal.”
Laila adds: “Back home, only the strongest women who could fight for freedom had the right of choices. Here, even simple things, dressing how I want, dancing, feel revolutionary.”
Belonging is still a journey
While many Portuguese citizens have welcomed Afghan refugees with generosity, the path to full acceptance is uneven.
“I went to the Social Security office and asked something in English,” Massoma recounts. “The woman said, ‘You came to my country — you speak my language.’ I walked out crying.”
Some women are confronted with assumptions about who they are before they even speak. “I want people to know I am Afghan — but I am not a terrorist,” Massoma says. “I’m just a mother, trying to build a life for my daughter.”
Laila notices a generational divide. “Older people are kinder. Young people avoid us. It’s like we remind them of something uncomfortable.”
Still, none of the women reported outright hostility. Instead, they speak of invisible walls: missed opportunities, miscommunication, and the loneliness of being watched but not seen.
For Sajeda, who still wears her scarf with pride, the stares are sometimes more exhausting than the stairs she climbs each day. “But I feel safe here,” she says. “And that means everything.”
From survival to contribution
They don’t want pity. They want a chance to contribute.
Tajala turned 27 years old now and she is working toward a master’s degree and dreams of gaining more experience and being expert in engineering. Laila wants to finish university and get a job in her field. Sajeda wants to start a business and bring her family out of Afghanistan. Massoma? “A peaceful life. A normal house. A place to raise my daughter where no one knocks on the door at night.”
Integration is a long road, one made harder by Portugal’s housing crisis, underpaid jobs, and administrative slowness. Around half of Afghan refugees eventually leave Portugal for Germany or the Netherlands, where larger Afghan communities and more robust support await. But some, like these women, are trying to root themselves here — even in shallow soil.
Where hope takes hold
At a quiet university campus in Lisbon, Tajala opens her laptop to review notes for her master’s course. The screen flickers slightly, but she pushes on. “I stopped having long term goals,” she once said. “Because I’m afraid they’ll be destroyed again. So now I focus on one thing at a time.”
These women’s stories are not just of escape, but of reconstruction — emotional, educational, and personal. Between classes, job interviews, bureaucracy, and language lessons, they are planting seeds: of self-worth, of possibility, of home. They’re not cultivating land — they’re cultivating life.
“We are not here to take. We are here to live,” says Massoma.
“Give us a chance,” Massoma adds. “And we’ll show you who we really are.”
Maybe tomorrow
The past is thousands of kilometers away. But the future — it might begin here. In a language still forming. In a rooftop apartment with too little heating. In a classroom where no one looks up when they speak Dari.
These women are not victims. They are pages refusing to remain blank. They came from the end of the world.
But here, in Portugal — maybe, just maybe — they will write a new beginning.