Tales of the Dark Age (No. 92)
Written by: Aref Shadbeig, Translated by: Shekib Jaghori
The Dark Age is a time when voices fall silent and stories vanish. In this series, Tales of the Dark Age, we turn to Afghan migrant women working in Iran, not simply because they are migrants or laborers, but because they are among the most voiceless of this era. Women without a platform, without an image in the media, and often without a name in our collective memory. Here, we listen to their voices, recount their lives, and preserve their stories because the true history of any age is written not by its victors but by those it forgets.
1. A Day in the Factory
“I work in a slipper factory from seven in the morning until seven at night. Half an hour for breakfast, an hour for lunch, both meals we bring ourselves. The employer provides nothing. Wages are paid daily. If we miss a day or an hour, it is deducted. I earn about 450 to 500 thousand tomans a day. Our foreman is Afghan, and most of the workers are too.”
This is part of Agha-Gol’s story, an Afghan migrant woman in Iran. Her account mirrors thousands of others: women who contribute to their family’s survival yet whose rights as workers are routinely violated. Iranian labour law promises equal rights for all women: job security, insurance, maternity leave. But where do Agha-Gol and women like her stand in these legal frameworks? Nowhere.
Afghanistan migrant women earn less than Iranian women, less than Afghan men. They have no insurance, no job security, no maternity leave. They cannot complain; they have no court to turn to. They live suspended between earth and sky, leaving home at dawn in fear of police raids, returning at night with the dread that their husbands or children may have been detained, sent to camps, or deported. For these women, life is a cycle of fear and fragility, the only share they have in the law.
2. Meeting Agha-Gol
She arrives for our meeting with quiet strength, a woman from Shahristan district of Daikundi province. She is a woman whose every gesture radiates determination, wisdom, and relentless effort. Today, she is here to share the story of her life. Her story is the story of countless women in factories, farms, and brick kilns, women with towering dreams but no legal safety net.
Her life is not just about the absence of labour rights. It is a life marked by displacement. She has fled her homeland more than once. Her past is a tangled thread, picking pistachios, shearing wool, working in kilns, harvesting tomatoes, stitching slippers, always without protection, always under the shadow of fear.
When I ask her to tell me about her life, she pauses. The silence feels like a search through time, as if she is trying to retrieve herself from the dust of years. Finally, she says: “My name is Agha-Gol Rezai. I don’t know how old I am.”
Like many Afghans, she has no exact birth date. In her village, births were never recorded. When she applied for an ID, the clerk guessed: “Born in 1355.” Her parents remembered only this: “You were born when the great flood came.” That flood is her calendar.
I ask about her migration. Her fingers tighten; something inside seems to break.
“We came to Iran twice. The first time, I don’t remember the year. I only recall that census papers had just started.” She pauses, her forehead creased with memories.
“We came illegally. There were five of us. It was mid-summer, the weather scorching hot. We migrated to Pakistan. The smugglers provided us fake passports to make to Iran. When we reached Iran, my children were tiny. The journey was brutal. My seven-month-old daughter suffered heatstroke…”
She lowers her head, pulling her scarf tight. Her shoulders tremble in silence. Then, almost in a whisper: “She died. Just after we crossed the border. We had no choice but to keep walking…”
Her grief hangs in the air. She wipes her tears with the edge of her scarf. “We spent a month on the road before reaching Delijan. We stayed with my father’s farmer for a few nights but later borrowed money to rent a house. I Worked in agriculture, then in a dairy farm for four years. Later, I found work in the slipper factory.”
“We migrated so our children could study,” she says. “My husband’s wages weren’t enough, so we planned: I would cover household expenses; he would pay school fees.”
Her voice lifts slightly: “When I started working, we sent the children to school. One daughter finished grade 12, even sat the entrance exam but couldn’t go to university. She now works in the factory. Another daughter left school in grade 7. My son finished grade 9, but then…” She hesitates.
“He quit after an incident. He won a football shirt in a match. Some local Iranians didn’t like it. They beat him almost to death. After that, he left for Turkey, then Europe.”
His story echoes thousands of Afghanistani youths who risk everything for a future. In 2023 alone, 1,181 Afghanistani migrants died on their journeys, according to IOM. I tell her I’m glad her son survived. She smiles faintly: “Life for us is hardship. If we don’t endure, we don’t live.”
“I’ve worked for twelve years,” she says. “First in farming, backbreaking work. Then in the factory. Even that gets harder every day. Maybe I’m getting older.” Her dream was simple: save enough to buy land in Ghazni, return home, and live with dignity. But illness, medical bills, and the absence of any safety net crushed those hopes.
When I ask about her worst memory, her face tightens. “Months ago, police stopped me on my way to work. They rounded up all women, with IDs or without ids. Took our phones and loaded us into buses, two vehicles for men, and two for women and children. We were sent to a camp in Qom. I saw things that haunt me still, people dragged in work clothes, sleepwear, barefoot. An old man beaten so badly… even if he were guilty, he didn’t deserve that.”
Her voice falters. “I had no documents with me. Called my husband; he brought them. They released me. Most were released but some, the ones with no family members in Iran, stayed behind.”
Agha-Gol’s story lingers long after she leaves, a tale of resilience and loss, of dreams deferred and dignity denied. Agha-Gol fell silent, but the ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ tale of this displaced Afghanistani worker is far from over. As I walked away, the story of her life kept flowing through my mind.
