We Are Displaced

Muzoon met Malala at a refugee camp in Jordan where Muzoon was living at the time. She was already aware of Yousafzai’s activism and felt that their lives had many parallels. While Muzoon and her family endured two years of living in war-torn Syria, they eventually felt that living in a refugee camp would be better than staying in their home. She was 13 when her family drove to the border and walked through the night to the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. At the camp, Muzoon’s family of eight lived in a 12-by-12-foot tent together. She was relieved to hear that there was a school at the camp since she was in grade nine and was hopeful to go to college once she had completed high school.

Muzoon recounts how surprised she was to see how few children in the refugee camp attended school. Other girls told her that they saw little point in pursuing education when they did not know if or when they would return home, or that they thought they could secure a better future through marriage rather than education. Muzoon shares that a 17-year-old girl in her refugee camp was prepared to marry a man in his forties, since she felt she had no other options in life.