By Lailuma SADID, Journalist in Exile
I didn’t plan to leave my country. Like many of my colleagues, I believed that journalism was worth the risks. But when threats turned into raids, and warnings turned into arrests. I was left with a choice: stay and risk everything or flee and try to preserve the one thing they couldn’t take – my voice.
I chose exile. But what I didn’t realise was how difficult it would be to hold onto that voice once I left.
For journalists like me, refugees who once worked in media, starting over in a new country brings both relief and a heavy silence. We escape persecution, but we also lose the platforms that once amplified our work. We lose our press badges, our networks, our credibility. We are no longer seen as reporters, cameramen, photographers or editors. We are seen as survivors, which is very painful and unacceptable. That shift is both real and painful.
One of the biggest barriers I encountered was language. In my home country, I reported in my native tongue. I knew how to shape a story, ask tough questions, and write with nuance. But in exile, I struggle to find the right words even in everyday conversations. Pitching an investigative piece to a foreign editor becomes almost impossible when you cannot really express the complexity of your ideas. Even with a translator, your voice is filtered, often simplified, and the story no longer feels like yours. My friends say it is the same for them.
Even more difficult is the lack of access. Media in exile is a lonely business. Unless you are fortunate enough to join a refugee-focused initiative or find a mentor in the local media landscape, the doors remain shut. Editors are often polite but rarely follow up. If you have no connections, no bylines in “recognised” Western publications, and no understanding of local media codes, your emails disappear into inboxes, unread and unanswered.
There is also the pressure to conform to a specific narrative. Often, the only interest in refugee journalists is when they are willing to tell personal stories of suffering about the prison cells, the checkpoints, the escape. These stories are important, yes. But many of us want to write about more than our trauma. We want to report on politics, society, human rights, or culture in both our home countries and in exile. Yet that kind of work is rarely encouraged. Our identities are reduced to symbols, not professionals with expertise.
Fear does not end at the border
Many exiled journalists live in fear of transnational repression. Authoritarian regimes reach across borders to silence critics, sometimes through digital surveillance, smear campaigns, or pressure on family members back home. Some of us have been harassed online by regime supporters. Others have seen relatives detained or questioned simply because we continued to speak. The psychological burden is heavy. Every story we publish can feel like a risk, but it gives us the opportunity to work as a journalists.
Then there’s the emotional exhaustion. Telling your own story again and again, especially for public events or interviews, can be re-traumatising. Some refugee journalists like me are invited to panels, documentaries, or roundtables where they are expected to relive the worst days of their lives. But few are offered counselling or support. And fewer still are paid for their labour. The emotional toll is real, and for many, it leads to withdrawal and silence.
Financial instability compounds these challenges. In exile, many of us start over from scratch. We take survival jobs like cleaning, caregiving, and construction – not because we have no skills, but because journalism is no longer an option. Some refugee journalists are working without papers, in the shadows, unable to publish under their own names for fear of being deported or targeted. The dreams of reporting again, of telling truth to power, feel far away.
Yet despite all of this, many of us refuse to give up. Across the world, refugee journalists are forming networks, launching podcasts, writing blogs, and publishing in exile-run outlets. We are learning new languages, building alliances, and finding ways to tell stories that matter not just our own, but those of our communities and countries. Some of us are reporting on diaspora issues, others on conflict zones, elections, or human rights abuses from afar. Our work is often unpaid or underfunded, but it is real, and it is urgent.
What we need is not pity, but partnership. We need media organisations to see exile journalists not as charity cases, but as colleagues. We need editors to be open to pitches from exiled writers, to offer mentorship, translation support, and fair pay. We need international press organisations to protect us from threats that follow us into exile. And we need mental health services that understand the trauma of being silenced.
Most of all, we need to reclaim our professional identity. Journalism does not end at the border. A reporter who risked their life to tell the truth at home does not become less of a journalist because they live in a refugee camp or share a room in a shelter. Our experiences are not just scars, they are sources of knowledge, strength, and clarity. We see things others miss. We understand stories others ignore.
When I received a prestigious international prize of humanism Henri la Fontaine of Belgium, it was not for my journalistic work, but for my humanism efforts supporting secret classes for girls in Afghanistan.
I have outlined just some of the main challenges refugees face in sharing their stories. As journalists in exile, we carry the burden of what we’ve lost but also the responsibility of what we still have to say. The question is: will anyone listen?
This article was produced as part of “MigraVoice: Migrant Voices Matter in the European Media,” an editorial project supported by the European Union. The views expressed in this text are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.
