Sao Paulo
\nSince September 2021, when Brazil\u2019s government issued a normative act authorizing humanitarian visas for Afghans, 1,237 people who fled the country after the Taliban assumed control have received the right to live in the South American nation.
\nAlthough they are grateful to be able to rebuild their lives in safety, adapting to the new reality has not been easy.
\nThe problem for many of them is that Brazil, which is not a high-income country, has been facing economic hardships over the past few years.
\nThe unemployment rate in 2021 was 13.2 percent, 13 percent of the population live in extreme poverty, and 55 percent of Brazilian households endure food insecurity.
\n\u201cThe issuing of the humanitarian visa by the government is a unique help. No other country has been doing it,\u201d said H. J. A., an Afghan university professor who preferred to remain anonymous due to security concerns.
\n\u201cBut when we arrive here, there\u2019s no program to assist us. We don\u2019t have a house, financial help or a job.\u201d
\nH. J. A., 31, was a law professor in the Afghan city of Jalalabad. Through social media, he met Brazilian social worker Rafaela Barroso two years ago.
\n\u201cWhen the Taliban took over Kabul, I asked him if he needed help and he told me he had to flee Afghanistan. That\u2019s when I began to look for ways to bring him to Brazil,\u201d she told Arab News.
\nBarroso said from the outset she told him that \u201cBrazil isn\u2019t Europe,\u201d and informed him about the harsh effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the country\u2019s economy. When he arrived in November 2021 he felt relieved, but new problems soon emerged.
\n\u201cPortuguese is too different from our national languages, like Dari and Pashto. Besides, many Brazilians can\u2019t speak English, so communication is a problem,\u201d he said.
\nBarroso said H. J. A. wishes to do a PhD in Brazil, but revalidating his academic documents can take a long time.
\n\u201cHe worked for a while at a halal slaughterhouse in a small city in the countryside, but then he concluded that there he wouldn\u2019t be able to make progress in the right direction,\u201d she added.
\nRahmatullah Khwajazada, 27, seems to share many of H. J. A.\u2019s views after having spent about three months in Brazil.
\nAn ethnic Tajik from Kabul, he worked for the National Statistic and Information Authority but lost his job with the Taliban takeover.
\nHe wanted to move to a safe country, so he tried to obtain a visa to go to Germany and Canada. He managed to come to Brazil.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve been facing much difficulty learning Portuguese, and finding work isn\u2019t easy, but hopefully I\u2019ll be able to rebuild my career in a few years,\u201d he told Arab News.
\nAfter living for some time in Sao Paulo, Khwajazada moved to Curitiba, where he hopes to have his documentation approved by the local Pontifical Catholic University. He intends to start a master\u2019s course in international relations next semester.
\n\u201cMy advice to my fellow Afghans is they should try to emigrate to another country if they don\u2019t have savings. It\u2019s very hard to survive in Brazil,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cBut for those who owned a business in Afghanistan and have some money, it\u2019s pretty possible to open a shop here and rebuild life.\u201d
\nLay missionary Rosemeire Casagrande, a member of the Scalabrinian congregation \u2014 a Catholic community that works primarily with immigrants and refugees \u2014 has been assisting Khwajazada and many other Afghans who arrive at Mission Peace, a welcome center in Sao Paulo.
\nShe said most Afghans who have arrived in Brazil are skilled professionals who used to work for the government, foreign embassies and universities.
\n\u201cAlthough they\u2019re prepared to reconstruct their lives, it isn\u2019t easy for them because they don\u2019t have here the same life quality they used to have there,\u201d she told Arab News, adding that many of them wish to enroll in post-graduate studies and one day go back to Afghanistan to help rebuild the nation.
\n\u201cMany of them are fluent in English. They know that if they move to the US or Canada, they\u2019ll be able to quickly go back to a university and receive a scholarship. But here in Brazil things are more complicated,\u201d she said.
\nThat is why it is common to hear among Afghans in Brazil that they are planning to migrate northward.
\nSome of them manage to take a plane to Mexico and then travel to the border with the US. Others take a land route through South and Central America, a rather risky journey.
\nCasagrande said Brazil\u2019s Education Ministry should help Afghan immigrants and speed up their university certificates\u2019 revalidation. \u201cWe also have to further incentivize Portuguese learning,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
It has been part of her job to clarify the pros and cons of Afghans\u2019 situation in Brazil. \u201cWe explain to them that in Europe their official status as refugees may take years to be approved. Until then, they aren\u2019t able to work or study,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Brazil, they may not receive any financial support, but they have all the necessary documents right away,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always a matter of choice, and it\u2019s their choice. But we have to inform them about those things so they can understand their possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The spokesman in Brazil for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Luiz Fernando Godinho, said: \u201cIt\u2019s fundamental that such a population has realistic expectations regarding the support it can receive in Brazil nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cIt\u2019s a country with a robust social aid system, but it can\u2019t secure housing for everybody, including Brazilians and foreigners.\u201d<\/p>\n
Godinho said the UNHCR is working to translate into Pashto and Dari brochures to guide Afghans about their rights and the assistance available in Brazil.<\/p>\n
Despite such difficulties, Afghan immigrant Sorab Kohkan, 65, who has been living in Sao Paulo for 10 years, describes Brazil as \u201ca paradise,\u201d adding: \u201cThe government doesn\u2019t give money to the people but offers them the possibility of feeling human again. For Afghans who wish to feel free, sleep well and work, here\u2019s the ideal place.\u201d<\/p>\n
A member of the persecuted Hazara ethnic minority in Afghanistan, Kohkan came to Brazil when US troops were still present in his country. \u201cMy people (Hazaras) didn\u2019t benefit at all from them. Only the Pashtun did,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
His life is Brazil was not easy. When he arrived, he looked for a government shelter to sleep but realized that immigrants and homeless people \u2014 some of them drug addicts \u2014 had to share the same place.<\/p>\n
He managed to rent a small room for him and his wife, who came to Brazil four and a half years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI began selling water bottles, T-shirts and other stuff on the streets, and I gradually began to learn Portuguese,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
After some time, he found a job as a teacher of German and French, \u201cbut the salary was low so I decided to rent a small place to open a restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n
There, he began to prepare pastel \u2014 a popular Brazilian street savory \u2014 and pizza. Over the years the business made progress, and now he and his wife have a small restaurant where they cook Afghan, Indian and Thai food.<\/p>\n
When the Taliban took power again, Kohkan \u2014 a father of five children aged 7-34 \u2014 immediately felt that he should bring his family to Brazil.<\/p>\n
He traveled to Afghanistan and tried his best to take them out, but had to come back after the two oldest children reached Pakistan.<\/p>\n
The others had to remain with relatives there, given that the local guides who clandestinely take people across the border refused to take children to Pakistan.<\/p>\n
After a long wait, his two children, along with a granddaughter and a niece, arrived in Sao Paulo in February.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a little worried about their difficulty to find work with the pandemic, but now they\u2019re free of bombs,\u201d Kohkan said, adding that the new arrivals will start studying Portuguese.<\/p>\n
They have been helping him and his wife at the restaurant. \u201cNow they don\u2019t need to struggle for their lives. They\u2019re living freely,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sao Paulo Since September 2021, when Brazil\u2019s government issued a normative act authorizing humanitarian visas for Afghans, 1,237 people who fled the country after the Taliban assumed control have received the right to live in the South American nation. Although they are grateful to be able to rebuild their lives in safety, adapting to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-247202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n