![]() That’s why I’m still here, I’m still doing my job.The Afghan Women’s Mission started operations in January 2000 and is run by a small group of concerned Americans in support of the humanitarian and political work of RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. ![]() “What makes me more powerful, what keeps me brave, is my confidence and commitment. “I’m excited for my life’s best moments,” she says. And beyond that, she wants to simply live a normal life, free of threats. I remember how hard it is to still live and be here in this country,” she says.īut she remains hopeful, and proud to represent a generation of young women in her country, dreaming of a better life for her younger sisters. I remember my brother’s tears, their pain. The attack on the school also sparked Ghafari’s memories of her own family’s tragedy. “We also desire a good life, we deserve a peaceful life.” I wish the international community at least sees the ongoing situation,” she says. “They can’t leave us to fight, to lose lives, lose hope, lose opportunities. For Ghafari, the attack shows that the new danger to women and girls is all-too clear. ![]() National Intelligence Council report suggested that even if the Taliban does not take over power, there could still be backsliding on the already uneven progress made over the last two decades.ĭays before Ghafari spoke to TIME in May, a bombing targeting a girls’ school in Kabul killed more than 80 people, mostly young students, and injured more than 140. The Islamic fundamentalist group has already reversed hard-won freedoms in large swaths of the country where it has taken control-imposing restrictions on how girls and women dress and behave, what they can learn and where they can work. withdrawal could lead to the Taliban regaining power, either through a political deal or by military force. When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, women and girls were almost entirely forbidden from going to school or working outside the home. move has raised fears that the fragile rights of women and girls in the country are in peril. 11-the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., which sparked the U.S.-led invasion. Violence and insecurity has only increased in the wake of the Biden Administration’s announcement April 14 that American and allied troops will withdraw from Afghanistan by Sept. “It was my dad’s dream too, that I stand my ground.” “When they understood they couldn’t kill me, they killed my dad,” she says during the first Eid celebrations since his death. Last November, her father, an Afghan Army colonel, was murdered in front of his house in Kabul. In total, she’s faced three attempts on her life, which she attributes to the Taliban. State Department’s International Woman of Courage Award in March 2020, Ghafari survived an assassination attempt in Kabul during which gunmen fired on her car. Shortly after returning home from receiving the U.S. Her success has come at great personal cost. “I wanted to prove that this is not normal, and that we need a change,” she says. Discovering that she was overwhelmingly outnumbered by male candidates only reinforced what she already knew: that women are considered second-class in most fields in Afghanistan, even beyond politics. But after encouragement from her friends and her fiance, she applied for the mayoral role in Maidan Shahr when the position was announced in 2017. Ghafari studied economics at college in India, and hadn’t initially thought of going into politics. “Being a woman in my country means living a life that is really full of difficulties, where everything is judged by gender,” she says. In Maidan Wardak, she started her own women’s rights NGO focused on empowering women economically through vocational training and workshops in 2014, and the following year, started a radio station called Peghla FM, taking its name from the Pashto word for “young girl” and focusing on educational programs. She was only 7 when the U.S.-led coalition invaded Afghanistan in 2001, ousting the Taliban government and beginning a grueling, years-long conflict with insurgents. Growing up against the backdrop of the war in Afghanistan, she became intimately familiar with the struggles women and girls face, recounting the disruption and devastation caused by terrorist attacks during her daily commute to school. Now in her third year of running a town in Maidan Wardak, a conservative province of 900,000 people 24 miles from the capital Kabul, 27-year old Ghafari is Afghanistan’s youngest mayor and one of very few women to hold such a post.
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