Two Afghan women believe their lives have been saved from a violent fate at the hands of the Taliban because they have been able to pursue their graduate degrees at Kent State University.
The pair came to Kent State from Asian University for Women in Bangladesh, rather than returning home to Afghanistan where their stance promoting education for women would likely have caused great peril or even death to them or their family members.
Mahdia Ahmadi and Sima Ahmadi both expressed how grateful they are for the opportunity to study at Kent State and for their chance at an education that is no longer available to them since the Taliban regained control of their country in 2021.
The duo, who are not related despite their same surname, arrived a year apart at the Kent Campus, with Sima arriving in August 2023 and Mahdia in August 2024.
Their enrollment at Kent State was due to a collaboration between numerous university departments and leaders who felt passionate about helping the two scholars.
Neil Cooper, Ph.D., director of Kent State’s the School of Peace and Conflict Studies, said Md Harun Or Rashid, an adjunct professor of political science, doctoral candidate and native of Bangladesh, first made him aware of a group of Afghan women who were essentially stranded in Bangladesh – likely to face a terrible fate if they returned home. Rashid had heard about the group from colleagues at Asian University for Women.
“The situation for women in Afghanistan has deteriorated dramatically since the Taliban swept back into power,” Cooper said. “Women have been banned from secondary and university education, from most professions, and from public spaces including parks, gyms and sports clubs.
“Women must also be accompanied by a male relative when traveling more than 72 kilometers (45 miles), and for many, this is the case even for shorter journeys,” Cooper continued. “Overall, the rights of women in Afghanistan have deteriorated so sharply in so many ways that some experts and United Nations officials have suggested the Taliban regime is implementing a form of gender apartheid. In this context, anything that can be done to help women from Afghanistan achieve the education they have a right to can only be a positive.”
Following an online meeting with officials from the Bangladesh university, Cooper said he felt compelled to help, and contacted Amanda Johnson, Ph.D., director of the Gerald H. Read Center for International and Intercultural Education within the College of Education, Health and Human Services at Kent State, because he felt her center may be best suited to assist.
Johnson said she connected with Sarah Smiley, Ph.D., professor of geography and interim department chair, who during the 2022-23 academic year was serving as the Provost Fellow in the Office of the Provost, because she knew of Smiley’s efforts to work with refugee scholars.
“One of the things that was on my plate at that time was coordinating the university response to refugees,” Smiley recalled.
With wars on going in Ukraine and other parts of the world, Smiley said there was a genuine interest in determining how Kent State can help refugee scholar populations.
“If fits well with our purpose, our values and our mission in terms of helping people and internationalization,” Smiley said.
Working collaboratively, Johnson, Smiley and others at the College of Education, Health and Human Services were able to arrange for graduate assistantships for both women as they work on doctoral degrees in curriculum and instruction and pursue research in that field – something that is only distant dream for women and girls in their home country.
Here are their stories:
Mahdia’s Story
Mahdia Ahmadi remembers vividly the day she was able to escape from Afghanistan: the ride to the airport in Kabul, the checkpoints along the drive, her mother not being able to enter the airport, and her father only able to stay with her up to the last security point.
She wondered if she would ever see her parents again.
It was a frightening experience, and yet, not as frightening as the prospect of staying in Afghanistan, where women were stripped of their rights after the Taliban regained control of the government in August 2021.
Life was not always so terrifying. Mahdia, 25, grew up in Ghazni Province, mostly during the 20-year American occupation of Afghanistan when women enjoyed more freedoms than ever before. Her parents were also very liberal when it came to educating their children.
Mahdia earned her bachelor’s degree in business administration from COMSATS University Islamabad in Pakistan, a federal institute for information technology, and after graduation, she began a career working for the nonprofit Afghan Women’s Educational Center as a finance assistant.
She began her job just weeks before the Taliban assumed control on Aug. 15, 2021.
“It was a very hard day, and I was very frustrated and scared,” she recalled.
Not only was Mahdia working, but she was an activist with the International Women’s Peace Group, which supports the rights of more than 3.5 billion women across the globe.
“I was going to the office at a time when women were no longer allowed to go to the office to work,” Mahdia said. “I was not allowed to work but I was committed and leaving my job was not an option for me. All working women were receiving threats to not continue going to work.”
“That was when I made the decision that my commitment should not be a burden to my family,” she said. “There was no place for women from that time on.”
She applied to study for her master’s degree in education at Asian University for Women in Bangladesh, where other Afghan women had gone to study.
The faculty at Asian University for Women encouraged the Afghan women to apply to other universities rather than risk returning home after they completed their degrees. Mahdia knew that her work as an activist left her little choice but to try to remain outside of Afghanistan.
After completing her master’s degree, she applied for graduate programs at many universities, but Kent State was her preferred choice for several reasons. She was attracted to Kent State for its stance on diversity and creating an inclusive educational environment, and she also was impressed by the resources available to help graduate students.
“But Kent State is also known as a public research university, and because I am doing my Ph.D., my concern is for research,” Mahdia said, “It was really important to me that Kent State was known for its research.”
Mahdia knows that unless the circumstances in Afghanistan change dramatically, there is little hope of her returning home, but she still maintains hope for the day when the situation changes “for me and all my fellow Afghans.”
For now, she is focused on her new life at Kent State and all that lies ahead.
“I appreciate all the opportunities I have in life and all the people who have supported me,” Mahdia said. “It’s been an amazing journey.”
Mahdia feels a tremendous obligation to do well in both her coursework and her job because of the opportunity she was given to study at Kent State.
“I was handed a responsibility, and I have to do it 100%,” she said.
Her hope is that through her success she can serve as a role model to others.
“Even if there comes a hard time, you just have to work hard. You never know when and where you will get a door that opens for you,” she said.
“Here you are never left alone, you just have to reach out to the right person. People are always supportive,” Mahdia said. “We do feel the freedom of where we are. So, I embrace the new beginning of my life as a Ph.D. student, and it is amazing.”
Sima’s Story
Sima Ahmadi has a dream of connecting all the young girls in Afghanistan through a computer network that will bring education into their homes, where they can study, learn, expand their minds and flourish, despite not being able to attend school or even venture outside.
That is why the 26-year-old is pursuing a doctoral degree in curriculum and instruction with a concentration in educational technology in the College of Education, Health and Human Services.
“Inside my country, after the prohibition of education for girls, the only way to provide education for them is through technology, online learning,” Sima said. “Now we have many online learning schools, but we don’t have research to know what the outcomes of these schools are and how successful are they at providing education for girls. That’s why I think there is a gap of research, and I feel responsible to do research about online learning.”
Sima grew up in the Herat Province in western Afghanistan. The transition from American occupation to Taliban control has been perilous for the entire country, but perhaps no one has felt the sting more severely than young, educated women.
After completing high school at age 15, Sima wanted to go to university, but her conservative father opposed the idea. Sima was not excited about a future sitting at home weaving carpets, one of the only jobs permissible for young women.
She became engaged to be married after high school and had the permission of her future husband to attend university and obtain a bachelor’s degree in computer science. “He has encouraged me a lot and is very supportive,” Sima said of her husband, Mohammad.
After earning her degree and marrying, Sima, in 2019, began working for international humanitarian organizations, including BRAC International, which promotes education for women in Afghanistan and the Norwegian Refugee Council, which helps provide education for displaced people.
However, once U.S. troops ended their decades-long occupation of Afghanistan and the country fell back into the hands of the extremist Taliban in August 2021, everything changed.
“We were trying to make some positive changes in our country, but after 20 years everything was back to zero,” Sima said. When I think about those things, oh my goodness, it is very heartbreaking. Everything was banned for us, especially for women who were working with international organizations.”
After about six months of attempting to work from home, Sima had to give up her job because she could no longer be productive without being able to leave home.
The circumstances of her family life in Afghanistan are difficult to imagine – constant harassment by the Taliban and her home and those of her relatives searched regularly.
While she is reluctant to discuss many specifics out of concern for her loved ones still in Afghanistan, Sima shared that her father, who spent his career with the Afghan Army, has been hunted by the Taliban because he worked cooperatively with the former government. He remains on the run, moving from province to province to avoid capture. Once or twice a year, her family will have contact with him, but typically it is a one-sentence phone call in which he shares only that he is OK.
When Sima was still working, she witnessed women being dragged from offices where they worked into Taliban police stations, after which they were never seen alive again.
The Taliban searched her parents’ home for her father, and when they could not find him, they arrested and jailed her uncle, trying to force him to reveal his brother’s whereabouts, only releasing him when it became clear he did not know.
After six months of being confined to her home, Sima read about Asian University for Women offering scholarships for Afghan women. Sima’s husband encouraged her to apply, believing that she would never live up to her potential trapped at home. It was the most daring move anyone in her family had ever made.
“Our families, they are traditional,” Sima said. They were against this decision. Being a married woman and leaving your country, your family, your life, it is very challenging for us. This is not a normal or common thing in our families.”
Once she arrived in Bangladesh, she found it difficult living alone for the first time and she considered returning home. But when she learned about worsening conditions from her husband, she knew she had to stick it out.
After Sima got out of Afghanistan, the Taliban came to inquire about her whereabouts, but eventually, the family was able to convince officials that she had gone to Pakistan for medical treatment.
Sima lived on her own in Bangladesh for 18 months, working as an administrative assistant at the university and completing her master’s degree. Pursing a doctorate was never something she had considered, but with conditions deteriorating in Afghanistan, professors at Asian University for Women encouraged the Afghan students to think about finding a place to continue their education rather than going back home.
Sima began applying for various programs in Europe and the U.S., but the offer she received from Kent State to enter the doctoral program to focus on educational technology, struck to the very core of what means the most to her: education for Afghan girls and women.
She arrived in Kent in August 2023, and her husband was able to join her a month later after obtaining a spousal visa to accompany her student visa.
For Sima, life in Kent is calm. Sima has found a helpful and welcoming community among other international students and a supportive network at Kent State.
“The project I am involved with is completely educational technology,” Sima said. “We are developing a robotic curriculum and then implementing it into some schools in Cleveland.”
The project involves a team from computer science and educational technology, and Sima enjoys the interdisciplinary nature of the work since she has degrees in both areas.
Most important, though, Sima and her husband are safe from the violence and fear of their homeland.
Sima admits that she misses the bonds of her large extended family in Afghanistan, and the safety of her parents and younger siblings remains a constant source of worry. Her 12-year-old sister remains at home, unable to go to school. “Being at home all the time, it makes you mentally sick,” Sima said.
But her sister and other girls in similar circumstances are the reason that Sima clings to hope that one day she will be able to return to Afghanistan to contribute to positive change.
“It’s not only about my sister – it’s about all women and girls in Afghanistan,” she said.