From exile, female former Afghan leader keeps fighting

NEW YORK (HRNW) — Two months after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, one of the country’s once-prominent female leaders — a former parliament member, candidate for president and a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize — is visiting the United Nations, not as a representative of her government but as a woman in exile.

In an interview, Fawzia Koofi called for humanitarian aid sent to Afghanistan to be contingent on the participation of women in its distribution, as well as free and safe travel for Afghans into and out of the country.

Aid “should not be politicized. … Women should be involved in every stage of it and they should be listened to. Women should not be only the recipients,” said Koofi, part of a delegation of Afghan women visiting the U.N. to urge member states not to compromise on inclusion and equal rights in Afghanistan.

Since fleeing Kabul in August, Koofi has been living in hotel rooms in Europe. She described the pain of separation from her country, of two decades of hopes dashed and of searching for permanent residence for herself and her two daughters.

“This is not an Afghanistan I fought for,” she told the . “The Afghanistan that I was hoping for was (that) women should not suffer as much as I suffered during my childhood, during the time that I was a teenager, when (the) Taliban took over.”