This project is a deeply personal and collective photographic exploration of forced migration, rooted in my own experience as a photojournalist from Egypt. In 2019, after years of reporting on human rights violations and political repression, I was detained while attempting to travel to a photography workshop in Lebanon. The state surveillance and harassment that followed left me no choice but to flee my home. I crossed borders by land to Sudan, then to Turkey, and eventually sought asylum in Germany. Along this journey, I met countless women—mothers, daughters, students, and survivors—who, like me, had been driven from their homes by war, dictatorship, or gender-based violence.
This ongoing project documents the physical and emotional toll of displacement, especially for women who endure unimaginable dangers—crossing forests on foot, surviving sea journeys, hiding in trucks, and waiting in limbo in refugee camps. The women I photograph carry not only their children and a few belongings, but also deep emotional scars. Still, they continue to fight for the right to live safely and with dignity.
Through intimate portraits, landscapes of escape routes, and fragments of daily life in exile, the project reflects a universal longing for home and safety. It also questions what it means to belong when returning is no longer an option, and the future remains uncertain.
As someone who cannot return to her country under the current repressive regime, I understand this pain intimately. But I also understand the resilience it takes to keep going. In telling both my story and the stories of the women I met, I aim to create a space for empathy, understanding, and awareness—especially now, as anti-refugee laws and far-right politics grow stronger across Europe.
This project is a tribute to those who fled, to those still waiting, and to the unbreakable spirit of women searching for a place to call home.