Zarghona Rassa came to London in 1994 after experiencing many traumatic events in Afghanistan, including the disappearance of her brothers and the looting of her family home. She is the founder of the British Afghan Women's Society, and works for media organisations such as ITN and the BBC on a freelance basis.
When I arrived the agent who brought us he just left us and said you know, someone will come you know to collect you and then we approached the immigration point and we were asked who are we and where did we come from and things like that. And I answered that I am from Afghanistan and I want to claim asylum in the UK.
And the first question they asked me, "Do you know anybody in England?" I said no. No relatives, no friends, "Then how can you survive here? Do you have money?" I showed that few hundred dollars I had or one or two thousands I think maximum I can't remember exact amount, but they told me, "How come you came here? You don't know anyone? What are you going to do here? How are you going to live here?" And my reply was this person knew, Persian, he spoke Dari, or Farsi,
I said to him that I can even wipe this airport and find food for my children and for myself to survive because I came here I left my job, my work, my country, everything that I had, I left my house, my home belonging everything behind my family;
so I did not come here just to come you know and I don't know anything or anybody here to come go and claims asylum and then straight go claim money and income support or whatever social help. I said I am not here for this reason.
I can wipe the streets and feed my children and myself and this was my response to him, straight away, in the airport.
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