Women

The second International Women’s film festival kicked off in western Herat province of Afghanistan on Saturday. The three-day film festival will mainly focus on violence against women and women’s right in Afghanistan which will be attended by filmmakers both from Afghanistan and abroad.

Unveiling Afghanistan Campaign: Shukria Haidar is a human rights activist. She sought refuge in France following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and founded NEGAR, an association for the defence of women’s rights, after the Taliban seized control in 1996.

Unveiling Afghanistan Campaign: Ahmad Wali Massoud is a prominent Afghan politician and head of the Massoud Foundation. He is the younger brother of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the resistance figure against the Soviet occupation and the Taliban who was assassinated.

Unveiling Afghanistan Campaign: Azita Rafa’at is a human and women’s rights activist from Badghis province. She was a people’s representative in the Emergency Loya Jirga to elect the transitional administration in 2002

Unveiling Afghanistan Campaign: Kaweh Jobran is a professor in literature in the State University in Kapisa province and works as a journalist with national and international media based from Kabul. A published poet and essayist, he is an active blogger and influential young thinker.

Dr Sima Samar is the current Chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. A doctor by training, Samar spent a decade in exile in Pakistan.

unveiling Afghanistan Campaign: Rahnavard Zaryab is an influential Afghan writer and scholar. He was imprisoned during the Taraki era in 1978/79. His work has brought him into extensive contact with democratic countries. He advocates for democracy and ideological freedom in Afghanistan.

Dr Humaira Qaderi is a writer and women’s rights activist. She was a teenager during the years of the Taliban, when girls were forbidden from going to school and libraries were closed.

We are living in a distinctive moment when neoliberal capitalism and neopatriarchy converge. Male dominance is no mere footnote to this new historic settlement. It is central. And feminism is decisive in the resistance.

By Jamieson Lesko, Producer, NBC News KABUL — Afghanistan has appointed a 50-year-old mother-of-five as its first female police chief. Col. Jamila Bayaz said her appointment was a sign of progress in the violence-ravaged country. […]