Iran

For the Safety of Our Children

Wife, mother of three. Now a refugee seeking a better future for her family.

Nasira
Nasira

Written by Twila Bird

Written by Lindsay Silsby

We are Quashqai Turks, Shia Muslims, from southern Iran.  My husband and I were very sad to leave our homeland because our families have been there for many generations. It was a difficult decision but the future of our children is very important to us. We have two children and soon we will have three. But the government of Iran discriminates against us. We had no support from the government. 

My husband was not allowed to study at a university, to obtain a job, or to own a home because of our ethnicity. We are a minority group and we don’t have the right to protest. Some brave people we know protested and they disappeared or were hanged. This made us decide to leave. Now that we have left, we can never go back. My husband would be jailed and tortured.
 
We must think about the future of our children.

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Our team members obtain informed consent from each individual before an interview takes place. Individuals dictate where their stories may be shared and what personal information they wish to keep private. In situations where the individual is at risk and/or wishes to remain anonymous, alias names are used and other identifying information is removed from interviews immediately after they are received by TSOS. We have also committed not to use refugee images or stories for fundraising purposes without explicit permission. Our top priority is to protect and honor the wishes of our interview subjects.

What would you do if you had to leave everything behind?

By the end of 2025, more than 117.8 million people worldwide had been forcibly displaced by war, persecution, or human rights abuses — and 45 million of them are children.

They arrive in refugee camps and countries seeking safety and carrying little: legal papers, if they're lucky. A backpack. A child's hand in theirs.

What they carry that we can't see is heavier: fractured families, homes they'll never return to, professions they loved, friends and relatives they may never see again.

In a climate where immigrant stories are often ignored or twisted, we believe stories are a form of justice. When someone shares what they survived, they reclaim their voice. When we amplify it through film, photography, and advocacy, the world listens. Hearts soften. Policy begins to shift.

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— Kristen Smith Dayley, Executive Director, Their Story is Our Story

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