Zarifa Ghafari

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Zarifa Ghafari (2020)

Zarifa Ghafari ( Persian ظریفه غفاری; * 1992 in Kabul ) is an Afghan local politician . Since summer 2018 she has been the mayor of Maidan Shahr , the capital of the Afghan province of Wardak with a population of 35,000 . At the age of 26, she was the youngest female mayor of Afghanistan when she was appointed and one of only a few female city leaders in the country.

Career

Ghafari is the daughter of a soldier and a physicist and has seven younger siblings. The family belongs to the Pashtun ethnic group . When Zarifa Ghafari was four years old, the Taliban took power in Afghanistan. A neighbor taught Ghafari the English language , and it was only when she was twelve that she could attend school after her family had moved to the Paktia province . An hour's walk led her to the school, Ghafari was the only girl at the school. After graduating from high school, she completed a degree in economics at the Pakistani University of the Punjab . With the money she earned while studying, she built up the NGO “Assistance and Promotion of Afghan Women” (APAW), which supports women’s associations, and founded the radio station Peghla FM in Wardak , which focuses on young women as listeners .

Ghafari was the only woman among 138 candidates to apply for the post of mayor in Maidan Shahr in a public tender. The Afghan central government recruits mayors through aptitude tests to reduce the costs of elections and the risk of Taliban attacks. When Ghafari was about to take office in the summer of 2018, "a mob of men with sticks" blocked her way and threw stones at her. The police then escorted her back to Kabul, where she made her story known on social networks. On the second attempt to take office, she found her office occupied by men with machine guns. It was not until spring 2019 that they could finally be sworn in. For security reasons, Ghafari does not live in the city she ruled, but in Kabul.

As mayor, she opened a women-only market in Maidan Shahr, creating jobs for women. Under the motto “Clean City - Green City”, it promotes the collection of waste paper and metals that are to be sold again for the benefit of the community.

public perception

Ghafari became internationally known through portraits in the New York Times and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung . The BBC chose her among the hundred most influential and inspiring women of 2019, and lifestyle magazine InStyle named her in the list of “Badass 50 2020” of the 50 toughest women of the year. The United States Department of State honored her with the International Women of Courage Award in March 2020 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ruth Fulterer: The youngest mayor of Afghanistan fears neither death nor the Taliban. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . January 29, 2020.
  2. ↑ Fatima Faizi, Rod Nordland: Afghan Town's First Female Mayor Awaits Her Assassination. In: The New York Times . 4th October 2019.
  3. ↑ BBC 100 Women 2019: Who is on the list? In: BBC . October 16, 2019.
  4. ↑ The Badass 50 2020: Meet the Women Who Are Changing the World. In: InStyle . January 10, 2020.
  5. ↑ 2020 International Women of Courage Award Recipients Announced. In: United States Department of State . March 3, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Ghafari, Zarifa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Afghan local politician
DATE OF BIRTH 1992
PLACE OF BIRTH Kabul