The life of an Iranian refugee in Jakarta: 'Of course I feel less than a human being'
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Mozhgan Moarefizadeh is 26 years old, ambitious, driven, and in love. She’s ready to start a career, get married, and have kids.
She’s ready to live, basically. But none of that is available to her.
It’s illegal for her to get married, to work, or to study, and she can’t bear to bring kids an existence where they’d live like she does — without basic rights or hopes for the future.
Her life has been on hold for the past five years, and it’s likely to stay that way for a long time.
Mozhgan hasn’t committed a crime, but she is a fugitive; one of almost 14,000 asylum seekers and refugees who are stranded in Indonesia.
In her spare time, Mozhgan makes wedding gowns for friends out of a tiny apartment in Jakarta — all on a volunteer basis.
It’s a skill she acquired from her mother, who managed a bridal business in Iran for more than 25 years — until the 2009 presidential election dramatically changed her family’s future.
Following the election, a brutal government crackdown saw thousands detained as political prisoners. Many others fled the country.
Her father’s advertising business had printed statements from opposition candidates and rallies, and one morning after the election, the family woke to find his shop closed and the staff arrested.
“The neighbours called and said ‘your shop is raided, don’t come’,” Mozhgan recalls.
