Meet the Woman Veterinarian of Kabul – Opinion

I was notified by the Kabul Small Animal Rescue in 2021 that they were trying to rescue animals from Afghanistan.

One of many stories emerged out of chaos was this. According to me, they had difficulty obtaining permission from the US to allow a chartered aircraft to land. The charity organizations had the airplane but lacked the callsign designator that would enable the plane to enter the airspace, land, embark passengers and cargo, depart from the field, and deposit KSAR’s animals and staff at one of the world’s evacuation stopover locations, known as “Lily Pads.” The NGO’s involved in the process were disturbed that paperwork, not resources, was impeding the extract.

I thought it was an interesting case study about those tumultuous days so I broke a story on RedState about it, “Desperate Dogs in Afghanistan; Sand Running out Trying to Save Left Behind Pets”. This story made its way to the top of the news cycle and received moral and political judgments about the people involved in the paper work. It also raised questions regarding whether it was important to save dogs.

My colleague Scott Hounsell penned a piece about the CDC being part of the SNAFU, “BREAKING: CDC-Issued Ban to Blame for Dogs Left Behind in Afghanistan” and Brandon Morse penned one placing some of the blame on President Biden, “Biden Also Abandoned Our Furry Soldiers, and Organizations Scramble to Help Them Escape a Terrible Fate.”

The charter planes did not arrive in the end. The animals weren’t evacuated in the chaos caused by the US evacuation. KSAR’s American lead, Dr. Charlotte Maxwell-Jones, refused to evacuate and took busloads of animals and staff back into the city. The incident was one of many that we forgot to do after our failed experiment in nation building.

MWOB

The KSAR story is interesting because it showed how the American version Afghanistan could thrive. KSAR had a female-run organization. They had female executives. The board of directors was comprised entirely women. The Taliban was unable to replicate this business model.

Hollie McKay is a friend of a journalist who was in Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan when Afghanistan fell. Hollie reports from Afghanistan that the Taliban would make little to no changes in rural Afghanistan’s lives, but the Taliban would bring great change to the lives of professional Afghan women, those with American dreams.

They were exactly the same women that served as women vets in KSAR. They are the refugees of strict Islam’s displacement.

Refuge

Some of the KSAR staff displaced by the Taliban regime, namely the female veterinarians, are now leaving the country.

The 20-year US occupation has seen professional women lose the opportunity to work in jobs that were only for men through edicts banning women from working in those roles. They quickly reverted back to an earlier Islamic Law interpretation of virtue and vice.

There was a scramble for freedom.  For many, it’s still a work in progress.

The end of 2021 was when I met Dr. Tahera Rezaei from KSAR. She boarded a US-bound evacuation plane out of Kabul. Meredith Festa (who runs Paws Unite People on Long Island in New York) also accompanied her.

How was it going? I was curious about the challenges they were experiencing. Is there anything the world can do to assist them, if any? How has their experience impacted their lives, most importantly?

To find out how Tehera, Meredith are doing on December 30, 2021 I spoke to them.

Interview

Dennis

What’s going on right now in terms of this effort? You’ve been engaged in extracting the people from Afghanistan for the past several months. What are your current whereabouts? Which percentage are still in the dark about who has escaped?

Meredith

“We have moved a little over half of our group, or in the process of moving out. They’re in another country and waiting for me to permit them to be moved to the U.S. military-run location for processing.

Although the process takes a bit more time now than in previous months, it is still a difficult one that has often been delayed due to Afghanistan’s unstable situation and everything else going on, they have moved them out. But the ones that were in the most danger, we have moved them out, and they are safe in safe houses.”

Dennis

What about the rest? You mentioned that many of those who are still in the same category as you, but haven’t been moved, were people who had lost their documentation. Are the US authorities helping to restore documents?

Meredith

“No. An attorney helped them obtain the documents they needed to exit Afghanistan safely and cross the border. Some of the male employees are still employed. But the remaining staff that need to leave haven’t left yet; we’re just waiting for their documentation.

We’ve been paying so that they can get the documents they need to leave because when everything happened with the bombing at the airport, a lot of people lost their bags and their items. It’s been a difficult process, but it’s something we’ve committed to making sure that every single person that was supposed to be evacuated when the US government was still there in August, who was waiting on those buses to get out, do get out.”

Dennis

What was the origin of this operation? Who is the first to initiate KSAR Afghanistan?

Meredith

“That was Dr. Tahera Rezaei. She can explain how she got involved with Kabul Small Animal Rescue.”

Tahera

“First of all, you know I work with now that, yeah, the UK charities in Kabul. Charlotte Maxwell Jones, one of our clients in Nawzad was Charlotte Maxwell Jones. You know what? I have become close friends with Charlotte. Charlotte is interested in starting her own charity. She asks me. You can join me if you wish and we will make Kabul a sanctuary for dogs. You said no, but I could help.

I was just a teenager. The first female veterinarian who opened a clinic and was registered at the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry is me. And you know, it’s my pleasure to become the first female veterinarian that doing this.

Once that is done, I can register my clinic at the ministry. From there, I will start working with animals small and small on the streets. There are stray and unwanted cats as well. Many of our TNVR projects involved trap, neuter, and waxing the release back. We did a lot of work. The first time, I was the only one. I was the only one. There were two other male coworkers. They’re just working for, you know, animal handlers, not you know, not assistant. After a while, it was me alone, so I could hire some new female vets. They had fresh, graduate educations and were excellent. The trainees were very skilled and they were able to be paired with new assistants.

The Taliban have taken over the government and the women staff can no longer work, however, they are still allowed to work.

But you know, it’s so hard for them because, you know, all the Hazara in our group are gone. There are many Hazara vets. You know that the Hazara population is in serious danger even with no Taliban.

They will face many problems in the future. They have more education than the rest. And the woman has more educated than other woman because the men, it’s my opinion, you know, Hazara man, they just allow their woman to work outside, to go to universities, to go in school. Because you know … (loss for words)”

*The Hazara are a Persian-speaking, ethnic minority in Afghanistan.

Meredith

“Culturally, Hazara men “encourage” more is what you’re trying to say.”

Tahera

“Yeah, encourage, yeah.

And when we work in clinic, you know, lots of our clients was, you know, they’re from other nations [I think she means other tribes]You know what? It depends on their ethnicity. They also see lots of women when they come to the clinic. It surprised them to discover that we actually have a female work area. They thought it was not suitable for women. Veterinarian job.

I do not understand, but they thought it is a job for just for men, not women because it’s so hard and it’s, you know, doing with animal. It’s not good for woman because some, you know, bad custom and bad culture, but I don’t care about that.

I ignore all negative thoughts. Instead, I go my own way, not thinking about the problems. How can you help animal health?

It was a great team. There were many young men and women working together and I was proud to see them. You see, I am proud of myself.

That environment is good for us, you know. It’s a team effort. When the Taliban or the Taliban win the government they will take Kabul. It was a clinic, and we were doing paperwork that would allow our animals to travel.

We heard that Taliban had come to Kabul. We stayed at the clinic for two whole days because it was so terrible. You know, we cannot leave because I don’t, you know, my husband is in home and I was alone and I, I couldn’t go home alone without any man. Talibon asked my why you were alone out on the streets. You know, why you’re and I was stuck in two days in clinic and after two days, that my husband able to come to clinic. So I decided to go home. And I’m like, that’s, it’s very, very bad feeling.

You know, after about nine years working outside, working for animals, once they said no, there is no way to woman work outside and he’s, uh, it’s so bad, it was so bad. An year ago, I interviewed with a French agency. It was Agence France-Presse, I believe. They took interview, and I said, uh, it’s before the Taliban, and they say ask me, what do you have feeling about?

If the Taliban come back, then what would you say? This video has been sent to me. I said I don’t have any good feeling about the Taliban. I think the Taliban had, you know, not changes to their mind and they, maybe, they don’t adopt a woman to work. And yeah, it’s unfortunate, it’s happened.

You know, it’s my opinion, but I think a lot of the women staff had done a lot of interviews, and a lot of talking, and a lot of promotion that they were the first female clinic, and it was female-run, and female staff members.”

Meredith

“And just those videos alone put a lot of them in danger, which is why we moved them to another country. Because they were so vocal, we moved them to another country as quickly as possible. They were vocal about women’s rights and were targets, especially since, as Tahera said, being a veterinarian and a woman was frowned upon on another level.

It wasn’t just if they were working; they were working with men as veterinarians in a female-run clinic come with a, you know, that charity was all female. The board of directors, in fact, is all female. Tahera served as vice president. However, the clinic portion of the board was named after her. The charitable part of it, the fundraising part of it, was in Charlotte Maxwell-Jones’ name for the United States and Afghanistan in Tennessee.”

Dennis

We are grateful for your background.  There’s a couple of things I wanted to cover with you.

It is important that there are still some female employees in the country. They are waiting in different parts of the globe for processing. What’s next for them? Is the US moving forward? How is America doing now?

Meredith

“The US government is definitely not processing them as fast as anyone would like. We’re waiting for the State Department to tell us where we can send them to be processed. The country that they’re currently in is not processing refugees; it was just a place to put them that would get them out of danger immediately.

Our group currently lives in a housing situation that costs close to $100,000 per month. This will rise as we get more people. Once we gather the whole group together, however, it is hard to imagine that amount.

Also, as long as they stay there, they can’t work. We have to look after them. They will have to cover their rent, food and expenses. This was part of the agreement. All of us hoped that things would go a bit faster. The government had assured us of their support.

The US (the US), are communicating with us. It’s just a lot of delays, a lot of delays. My hope is that we can at least get them moved to one of the US military bases, for example, like the one in Qatar or the one in Germany somewhere where they would be under the US government care in a facility that was set up to handle this, instead of us renting them houses to stay in while we wait, because that’s the cost and then visa extensions.

We received 30-day visas for our first move. After that, it was confirmed that the visa was valid and we could continue to work with them. Later, however, they were denied entry due to delays. To increase their visa status, we needed to hire an attorney. It was an extra $1,000 per person so you can see how quickly it adds up.

We’re not. We wouldn’t leave, I know. I mean, we’re not leaving them. We’re not abandoning anyone. We’re going to figure it out.

To get support, we created a 500K fundraising page. We also need to purchase a plane for them to travel to the US. So, that’s a whole other part of it as well.”

Dennis

That sounds like an expensive project that will require a lot more logistics and money. Do you get any support from the US, in terms of expediting the work from various parts? Are you the only one?

Meredith

“I have some amazing senators. But as time goes on, It’s me and my big mouth. No, it’s my organization. We’re working really hard. Some senators are there to help. They’ve been a godsend, and a few congressmen that have been advocating. However, the legislative branch cannot advocate for your behalf. They don’t have control over the State Department at all.

There are people at the State Department who can assist us. We are in direct contact with and they’re doing the best they can, based on the restrictions that are wrapped around them. None of the people currently working with us are to blame. I think it’s just the process is so broken. I’m in contact with a lot of other organizations that have refugees in similar situations. The same issues are being faced by them.

The P1P2 visa is used to move the Afghans out of Afghanistan. In order to gain entry to the United States they will need to move to another country. The thought process is, “Oh, we get them there.” They visit an embassy, and the embassy processes their visa. Then they are allowed to travel to the United States.

But that’s not how that’s working. And you move them to the other country and then the embassies are still short-staffed that they can’t do anything.

So, now, nothing is being looked out, and they’re sort of just waiting until a space opens up at what, when the “Lily Pad” bases that were set up, where the refugees could go to wait. Tahera visited a Lily Pad base, Italy.

Another family has come to visit. Akram is my friend. Also, he worked at Kabul Small Animal Rescue. He had just been released from an American military base. He spent several months in Germany before he was moved to the USA. He spent three days in Virginia. Then he was released and moved to an Arizona temporary residence. So, we’re going to be putting up a list for him for things that he needs.

There’s seven people in his family. His children are young. His father was a finance executive. How did Akron help you? What was his job?”

Tahera

“He was the transportation officer. He made sure that all animals from different parts of the world were sent to the United States. So, when a soldier wants to send a dog home that he or she adopted in Afghanistan, that would have gone to Akram.”

Dennis

So, you’ve got groups of people coming in. They’re processing. You can hear it sound slow at times. And at this point, it sounds like you’re in for a long haul. Which services do you require? What are you looking for?

This is clear evidence that money is needed to sustain the business. But in addition, as these people show up in parts of the United States with their skills, you said you’re putting up a site to keep helping them get settled. Do you need the areas that they’re going to be informed about what their skills are, so they can begin to integrate?

Meredith

“I have a pretty good idea of where everybody can see it stands, what they can do, what their skills are. I do have SIV applicants and make group that were family members of some of the staff, so obviously, we don’t have just one-hundred sixty-one (161) human beings that all worked at the shelter. Groups that have worked with the US Government or worked for another government. All of those people and their skills, we’re sort of trying to help put them in the right place.

The goal of the project is ultimately to bring back the staff from the shelter. Right now, my shelter is 100 percent volunteer. This is a small rescue for animals. We help victims of abuse, cruelty, or neglect. Because I’m the back-up for many animal rescues in the world, in different countries, I was able to help when something went wrong.

Multiple times I have assisted with dogs who needed training. Retired military dogs were my first priority. Aaron was the name of one. But that’s how I knew Dr. Tahera Rezaei, other doctors, and KSAR staff.

Because I was a former employee of them, I felt a connection with them. These people are our goal. It would be nice to be able to bring them back here and be able to expand what I’m doing in New York to include the clinical offer, low cost spays, neuter to the community. Reassemble the group and allow them to do the same in Afghanistan as they did here in America.

For U.S. citizens, we’re in New York and in New York, you know, it’s hard to get a veterinarian appointment because there’s a shortage of availability, so this would really be something that we could do to help support our community and would give all of these people the opportunity to pay it forward, as far as, you know, they were brought here [and]We were able help them.

They get to live to fight another day, and then they get to help the community that they’re moving into and be a productive part of it, which is what they all want to do.”

Dennis

Tahera really told me the truth. She said that small-scale animal rescue operations were a great example of Afghan women prospering in spite of the US’s 20 year involvement.

I’m very curious to hear your perspectives on this chapter closing so quickly because, you know, clearly anything going forward in Afghanistan is going to be driven by male staff at places like KSAR.

What does it feel like to have done so much and then see everything disappear so quickly last August?

Meredith

“In speaking to the women and staff that we’ve helped so far and the other women that are in my group that were related to male staff members that worked as psychiatrists and businesswomen, including one of them worked for the Dutch Department of Agriculture.

As a liaison you know that these women are powerful, intelligent and strong. It would be a tragedy for them all to see it go away. Jada was calling me when all of it happened, and it was so heartbreaking.

You know, as a woman, it’s difficult for me. As if tomorrow was yesterday. I mean, I run an animal shelter. Our animal shelter has a large number of animals. It’s a women-run charity. It would be a shocker if I was told that my husband could do my job for me. I don’t know how I would handle that. That’s what I meant by emotionally.

They’ve all been so strong, just so strong, and so scared. Some of them were receiving threatening texts on their mobile phones. I was awakened in the middle the night. Every hour of the day, I got calls. I answered every call. It was so hard for them to get up every morning knowing that they couldn’t do the things they had known.

They are mostly between the ages of 20-40. They don’t know how to do anything else.  I mean, I’m 46, the women that are closer to my age remember what it may have been like under the Taliban. They’ve forgotten it. They’ve moved past it, but they remember.

You know Tahera is still young. In the 1990s, they were very young. It’s the young ones. They don’t know how to function like that to not, all they’ve ever known is being able to do what they wanted to do, to have dreams. They were all just crushed in an instant. They should all be eliminated from that situation, my opinion. If I could reach every woman in the world, this would not happen. [and]A little girl who had the dream of becoming something.

The men who supported these women may be in peril. To be fair, no one in the country requested this and they didn’t deserve it. We could have done a lot better for them.

My friends, colleagues and fellow animal welfare activists were the only parts of this that I was able to physically or mentally affect. This was because my husband or I would not be capable of stomaching or functioning if our friends were in imminent danger. I just can’t.

It’s very hard. It’s very difficult. I know Akram’s got a little daughter. What can you do to get away from those who are used the US’s lifestyle?

The social experiment was unsuccessful. So, you teach everybody, there’s this whole, wonderful way of living and that you can be somebody, and you just have to work hard, and you’re going to be able to follow your dreams. And then, in a snap, it’s gone. They are gone. Sorry.

I just wasn’t going to let that happen.

I just know, from speaking to those women there, and the ones that we have moved, that, if I didn’t move them, I don’t think they would have been OK.

Some of these people had serious mental health issues. I was uncomfortable during some of the conversations. It was hard to say: don’t do something stupid, I’m going to get you out, when it took so long.

These women were scared. Some of the women were single. They were being approached by Taliban members saying, we’re going to get you a new husband. One of them was already married and a Taliban person said, well when you’re a widow, [we]You will find a husband. I mean, those things were being said to them, until we got them out of that country.”

Dennis

Tahera. You’re here in the United States now. You feel the need to keep going despite what happened in Afghanistan.

Meredith

“I can hear him better than you (over the Zoom). What he’s saying is how do you feel now that you’re in the United States knowing that everything that happened and everything that you’ve lost and having.to move forward. How do you feel now?”

Tahera

“Yeah, you know, I just, now, I’m feeling good. Although I was worried about my family, I do hope that they come one day.

Because I was a specialist in the field, I can see that my future here is bright.

As you all know, Kabul was dangerous. I saw too many explosions close by me some days. Many people died.

I continued to work and continue my education, even though this happened. I was not content to stay home and got married. My family supported us, and they told me: You can get an education. Go to school. Get to university.

After that, I was employed by many organizations. My experience in animal healthcare lasted about nine years.

My future is bright. My family, they’re coming. You can also work here. You have more options to get educated. I have more skills and more experience.

Do you know what? It’s my duty. No matter where you live, it’s the same. It’s my duty to work for animals, for animal health, because I promised myself if I become veterinarian, is my job to work for them.

No, it’s not important, if someone, you know, doesn’t like me. I don’t care about them. My friends and my jobs are what matter to me. I am supported by them. I don’t know how I can say that I have no bad feelings in Kabul. I try to forget the bad.”

Dennis

Your answers were very interesting to me. I know Meredith sees this from worry, because she’s from here and is used to what we have and knows what we can lose in America.

Telling you this (Tahera), is the truth that you have just stated that you now see potential and a brighter tomorrow than you saw five months ago.

It is very kind and eloquent. It is also a powerful way to communicate your thoughts. Well of the chance that exists in this country, to which you have fled.

This interview would be closed by me saying that, “as one immigrant towards another,”

America is your home!