In their Pakistan safehouse, Shayma and her family try to keep their voices low so their neighbours don't overhear their Afghan mother tongue.

But she can belt out Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'" any time she likes, and no-one would guess it comes from a 15-year-old refugee in hiding.

"In the kitchen, the sound is very good," she told AFP alongside her sister and fellow young bandmates.

By now, Shayma should have been testing the acoustics of her new home in New York.

But before her family's scheduled February flight, US President Donald Trump indefinitely suspended refugee admissions, stranding around 15,000 Afghans already prepared to fly out from Islamabad.

Thousands more are waiting in the city for relocation to other Western nations, but shifting global sentiment towards refugees has diminished their chances and put them at risk of a renewed deportation drive by Pakistan, where they have long exhausted their welcome.

For girls and women, the prospect is particularly devastating: a return to the only country in the world that has banned them from most education and jobs.

"We will do whatever it takes to hide ourselves," said Shayma's 19-year-old bandmate, Zahra.

"For girls like us, there is no future in........

© International Business Times