Family portrait

Every time I look at this photo, it brings me back to the beginning of the 2000s, to the early civil wars and the genocide in Afghanistan. I see the worry in my father’s eyes, and I am taken back to my childhood and to my life as a refugee in Pakistan. It reminds me of my parents’ lives, of the hardships we endured, and of our migration. I often find myself thinking about how war and displacement shape people’s lives, especially the lives of children. In this photo, my parents were children too. Childhood should be a time of peace and security, yet for many it is marked by fear, instability, and loss.

This photo is important to me because it holds stories that I cannot fully put into words, yet whose impact I have deeply felt throughout my life. After the change of government in 2021, those memories returned with force. I remember the night of August 15, when the fate of millions of people shifted once again. Days and nights seemed to blur together, reduced to alternating darkness and light. Once more, I took the path of migration, in search of a normal life and a different future for the next generation.

Now, as I study the sociology of migration at university, I find myself confronting a fundamental question: what happens to the millions of people who migrate, whether by choice or necessity? Along the way, some answers have become clearer to me.

This photo is part of my life and my destiny. It is a reminder of family, migration, and childhood, and of the enduring impact these experiences leave behind.