Fawzia Koofi is a former Afghan MP, the first ever female Deputy Speaker of the Afghan Parliament, and a veteran human rights advocate whose career embodies the fragile yet essential relationship between law and justice in conflict zones. Elected to the Afghan National Assembly in 2005, she spent nearly two decades drafting and championing legislation to protect women from violence, establishing constitutional safeguards that—until the Taliban’s return to power—represented hard-won legal progress in one of the world’s most challenging environments.

Her work extends beyond lawmaking to the negotiating table: as one of only a few women in the 21-member delegation for the intra-Afghan Peace Talks beginning in 2018, she fought to ensure that legal protections for women and minorities remained central to any political settlement. Her commitment to the rule of law has come at extraordinary personal cost—she has survived multiple assassination attempts. When the Taliban seized control in August 2021, Koofi was placed under house arrest in Kabul. She was forced into exile, leaving behind a country where the legal framework she helped build has been systematically dismantled, including the Taliban’s ban on girls’ secondary education.

Now operating in exile, Koofi continues to press the international community to uphold accountability mechanisms and maintain pressure on the Taliban regime through sanctions, travel bans, and denial of UN representation. Her career is a testament to how advocacy and legal frameworks can work in tandem to protect vulnerable populations.

In an interview conducted by The Champions Speakers Agency and published exclusively by JURIST, Koofi discusses her work in politics, advocacy and women’s rights, what has kept her going in the face of adversity, and the contributions she sees as most critical in advancing gender equality.

Editor’s note: The following has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.

Your work has required sustained commitment over decades in one of the world’s most dangerous contexts for women’s rights defenders. What has motivated you to continue this work, and how have your personal experiences shaped your advocacy?

Fawzia Koofi: My work has always been motivated by the needs of my country—of its women—and also by the love and support I have received from my people.

Globally, the world has become a difficult place when it comes to justice, equality, women’s rights, and human rights. It’s not only Afghanistan, though Afghanistan has some of the most severe violations of human rights in the 21st century.

But if you look at other parts of the world, the world has become deeply unjust. And so, addressing this is our responsibility.

Our political and social beliefs are shaped by personal experience. My experience as a child and what I have gone through from childhood until now has hugely impacted my career, my fight, and the cause I’m fighting for.

That is my source of inspiration. The day that I don’t contribute to a better world, I feel that I don’t exist.

Some days when I’m reflecting and analyzing, I realize there are still so many areas where we as human beings could contribute to a better world.

My childhood—the continued discrimination, injustice, and exclusion I experienced as a woman—gave me the passion and the reason to fix it for other women.

But unfortunately, what’s happening to women in Afghanistan now is heart-wrenching, and that gives me reason to continue my fight.

Looking back at your career—from tabling legislation to establishing schools to serving as Deputy Speaker—what contributions are you most proud of? And how do you reflect on these achievements in light of the Taliban’s return to power?

Koofi: My major contribution has been paving the way for the younger generation. When you’re the first to climb a mountain or pave a road, you will face many obstacles. The road is very bumpy. When you climb a mountain for the first time and make history, it is not easy because you’re paving the way for others. You’re venturing into unknowns, into uncertain areas, and that is never easy.

This is what I have done. I have started down roads that few people walked before, and the journey came with rocks and bumpy terrain.

But I have moved it forward. What I am always proud of—and I think most women who have been active in the last 20 years share this—is that we paved the way for other women and inspired them.

We showed them that as a woman, you can do it too. As a woman, we are no longer invisible. We are no longer second-class citizens.

The moment you decide to do something, you can do it. You just need to believe in yourself, believe in your capacity, be passionate about what you do.

It has not been easy, obviously. Throughout this journey I have contributed significantly by tabling laws that protect women from violence.

At some point, even in my society, violence was regarded as a normal thing in a woman’s life by women themselves because that’s what they were experiencing.

For me to table a law that would protect women from violence, I faced opposition not only from male conservative members of our society and radicalized figures, but also from some women because they thought this was simply part of their life.

But we managed to pass the law on violence against women and many other laws. I established schools and continue to do that in remote areas of Afghanistan.

My very existence—the fact that I was the first girl in our family to be educated, the first girl from my area and family to be a member of Parliament and deputy speaker—matters.

I was the first of many things. When you are the first, you accept that you must pave the way for others and walk on a bumpy road.

I’m proud of so many things that I have done. I’m proud of all the laws I tabled, all the schools I established, and all the women and men I have inspired. But I’m also disappointed to see everything reversed in Afghanistan.

You have survived threats and attacks, and have endured in the fact of discrimination. Beyond physical security, what have been the deeper challenges of working as a woman in Afghan politics, and what strategies have you developed for confronting rather than avoiding opposition?

Koofi: My major lesson from these experiences is that as a woman, when you become stronger, you need to accept that you will find more enemies.

You really have to be ready for that, develop thick skin, and be able to face those circumstances and that environment. You must be ready to adapt based on the situation.

As a woman, when you enter a room full of men, people don’t judge what you can bring to the table or what knowledge you can add.

They always judge a woman based on her outfit and appearance. I was judged for my scarf, judged for my lipstick.

I was judged for my clothing and not for what I could bring to the table. It took considerable effort to make them understand that what I wear doesn’t make a difference.

What I bring to the table makes the difference. Eventually those men realized this. In the case of negotiations with the Taliban, for instance, they initially thought we were just there to make the process look inclusive.

We were there merely as tokens. But over time, the knowledge, diversity, and inclusivity we brought—the in-depth layers of understanding from the grassroots level to the policy level—became clear.

We were living examples of what was going on in Afghanistan, and we also had knowledge of what could be done for the country.

We brought diverse perspectives. Eventually some of those Taliban members started realizing that we weren’t at the negotiation table as token women during those difficult moments.

We were there because we have views, we own our views, we have vision, we have perspectives. Challenges ranged from people judging my clothing and relationships to attacking my ideology.

I was facing opposition on all these levels, to the extent that I was targeted and injured twice by the Taliban. The last time was in 2020 when my right shoulder was injured. The wounds from physical attacks will heal.

But the wounds from being ignored as a woman for your gender, from being excluded and not being taken seriously—those will always remain with you. In my case, it gave me more reason to fight that injustice.

My way of tackling challenges was to be inside the challenge rather than escape it—to learn, find your way within it, and resolve it.

Be able to communicate and be patient. Most of the time, they try to touch the sensitive points of a woman, going very low in their criticism or in whatever they want to do against a woman.

This is when we have to go high. We have to demonstrate our best version and always be up to standard. That’s another reality for women in politics—you always have to be up to standard in terms of your outfit, your knowledge, your communication.

What I have learned is to find your way within the problem, to be patient and face the challenge, to develop thick skin. Escaping the challenge does not resolve it.

You need to face it, reflect, and then find your way forward. Don’t get disappointed, because there were days when I was so disappointed, so low in morale that I thought maybe this is my last day in politics. Why should I do this?

Why continue my activism? Why work on sensitive topics like human rights and women’s rights when in many parts of the world these are controversial? But the next day when I got the first phone call from a woman who needed my help, I remembered the needs of my people and the fact that I was probably doing good work—work that people opposing me were unhappy about.

When we are attacked with hateful speeches, or even physically in my case, I remember that the only weapon I have is my words.

My only weapons are my communication, my knowledge, my people, and the way I talk to them. If these radical groups are afraid of that, maybe I should strengthen it.

That is my experience and my takeaway. If you’re doing something truly good and your opponents take you so seriously that they try to put you down, then empower yourself more.

Strengthen yourself more. Strengthen those aspects that actually frighten and threaten your opposition or the person who is going to great lengths to silence you.