What if Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl whose opposition to the Taliban nearly killed her, applied to the United States for asylum? Would the Department of Homeland Security turn her down? The story of Shazmina, who led a life similar to Malala's, gives us a pretty fair idea.
Shazmina (not her real name) was born into an educated Kandahar family a decade after the Soviet invasion. At 3, she was promised by her grandfather to wed a cousin from a family of Taliban sympathizers. At age 20, she returned from college in Pakistan, fluent in six languages, with the aim of teaching neighborhood children. Her illiterate cousin demanded that they wed and a council of elders said she must obey. Her father refused, and was briefly kidnapped for his courage. The family sent Shazmina to Kabul with a cousin on the pretext of shopping for a bridal gown, and she fled to the U.S. embassy. On his return, the cousin was assassinated.
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