The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe

In September 1996, Kamila Sidiqi is awarded a certificate for completing her studies at the Sayed Jamaluddin Teacher Training Institute. Her sister completed the course and now teaches high school classes in Kabul. Kamila’s studies were made more dangerous by the civil war in Afghanistan during her time studying. Kamila’s clothes stretch “the sartorial limits of [her] traditional country” (15); before the Mujahideen came to power in 1992, most women in the country had dressed in a Western style. Four years later, their clothing is much more restricted. Kamila had been born two years before the 1979 Soviet invasion and the decade of fighting that ensued; after the Soviets left, a brutal civil war broke out among the Mujahideen commanders for control of the country. Though many fled, most tried to continue with their lives as best they could. Kamila hopes to attend university and become a professor one day.

Kamila takes her certificate and travels home to the neighborhood of Khair Khana, overhearing worried conversations about the Taliban, one of the more brutal and misogynistic factions in the civil war. She rides the bus past devastated buildings, listening to the stories of how the Taliban will stop women attending schools, among other forms of oppressive behavior.