Crossing the World

I found her in a pink house in a small city in center of Sweden. It was amazing to see the family who moved from slums in Golshahr, Mashhad to this beautiful doll-house in Sweden! These Afghan women moved a long way in world. Having a part in facilitation of their resettlement process as a staff of UN Refugee Agency, I could meet them as urban refugees in their slums in refugee populated areas in Iran. Then, I found them in Sweden and met them in their nice clean houses. This book tries to dig into the experience of migration for the women coming from a traditional society marked by extreme poverty and lack of education and their efforts to integrate in highly modernized Swedish society. I followed women headed Afghan families who are resettled as quota refugees from Iran to Sweden. However, access to facilities and the material abundance is part of the integration game. These women have a long way to be a real part of the new society.