“Typically, the transition period is the toughest for immigrants as they begin work or move to social assistance,” Marwan Ismail, executive director of Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services said.
“After one year here we received a letter from the Canadian government that there will be no more financial support,” Mosleh said. She spent 45 days in hiding until she found an organization to facilitate her departure from the country, though she didn’t know where they would end up. “The Taliban are savages and the language of the Taliban is only the language of guns … I was very afraid of what would happen if I stayed in Afghanistan.”In Afghanistan Rahel, 38, was a prominent women’s rights activist and a lawyer. She fled the country after the Taliban takeover and is now living with her husband in Toronto. But her desire to get her doctorate in law is gone, and now she is learning English with the goal of further education in Canada.