A Celebration of Women™

is honored to Celebrate the Life of this woman leader, a visionary ahead of her times, devoting her life to women and human rights. She is a doctor for the poor, an educator of the marginalized and defender of the human rights of all in Afghanistan. She has established and nurtured the Shuhada Organization that, in 2012, operated more than one hundred schools and 15 clinics and hospitals dedicated to providing education and healthcare, particularly focusing on women and girls. She served in the Interim Administration of Afghanistan and established the first-ever Ministry of Women’s Affairs. Since 2004, she has chaired the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission that holds human rights violators accountable, a commitment that has put her own life at great risk.

 
 
 

WOMAN of ACTION™

 

 

Sima Samar

 
 
 
 
Sima Samar (Persian: سیما سمر‎) (born 3 February 1957) is a well known woman’s and human rights advocate, activist and a social worker within national and international forums, who served as Minister of Women’s Affairs of Afghanistan from December 2001 to 2003. She is currently the Chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) and, since 2005, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Sudan.

In August 10th 2005, due to her courageous and untiring work for the cause of Human Rights in the national and international arena, she was appointed as the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights for Sudan by the commission of human rights of the United Nation.

In 2011, she was part of the newly founded Truth and Justice Party.

Sima received a medical degree in 1982 from Kabul University, a career chosen based on her desire to make a positive difference in her country. Yet her work to effect positive change in Afghanistan was performed for many years from Pakistan, where she fled after her husband was arrested during the Russian invasion ofAfghanistan. He was one of more than 500 educated people rounded up one night in 1979, never to be heard from again.

Samar was born in Jaghori, in Ghazni Province of Afghanistan, on 3 February 1957.

She belongs to the ethnic Hazara group. She obtained her degree in medicine in February 1982 from Kabul University. She practiced medicine at a government hospital in Kabul, but after a few months was forced to flee for her safety to her native Jaghori, where she provided medical treatment to patients throughout the remote areas of central Afghanistan.

She was an active member Hazara group under the leadership of Baba Mazari, a Hazara leader who was fighting against Racial injustice, and promoting unity and brotherhood of all ehtnicities, therefore equal rights in Afghanistan; she is head of human rights commission in Afghanistan. Baba Mazari was a remarkable supporter of Women Rights.

In 1984, the communist regime arrested her husband, and Samar and her young son fled to neighboring Pakistan. She then worked as a doctor at the refugee branch of the Mission Hospital. Distressed by the total lack of health care facilities for Afghan refugee women, she established in 1989 the Shuhada Organization and Shuhada Clinic in Quetta, Pakistan.

The Shuhada Organization was dedicated to the provision of health care to Afghan women and girls, training of medical staff and to education.

In the following years further branches of the clinic/hospital were opened throughout Afghanistan.

Former U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Sima Simar in January 2002.

After living as refugee for over a decade, Samar returned to Afghanistan in 2002 to assume a cabinet post in the Afghan Transitional Administration led by Hamid Karzai.

In the interim government, she served as Deputy President and then as Minister for Women’s Affairs. She was forced into resignation from her post after she was threatened with death and harassed for questioning conservative Islamic laws, especially sharia law, during an interview in Canada with a Persian-language newspaper.

Afghan human rights activist, ex-minister and burka opponent Sima Samar today won the Swedish Right Livelihood Award honouring those who work to improve the lives of others.

Samar, 55, was honoured “for her longstanding and courageous dedication to human rights, especially the rights of women, in one of the most complex and dangerous regions in the world,” the jury said in a statement.

A medical doctor by training, Samar fled to Pakistan in 1984 when her husband disappeared following his arrest by Afghanistan’s communist regime.

She returned in 2001 to become her country’s first minister of women’s affairs, but had to resign after just six months after she criticized sharia law in an interview in Canada.

She was in 2002 named the head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, which she still leads, and was from 2005 to 2009 the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Sudan.

Samar shares the 2012 Right Livelihood Award with American political theorist Gene Sharp, 84, whom the jury described as “the world’s foremost expert on non-violent revolution”, and a non-governmental organisation compaigning for an end to British arms exports, Campaign Against Arms Trade.

– See more at: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/afghan-burka-opponent-sima-samar-wins-swedish-rights-prize/1008758/#sthash.SRajPUR3.dpuf

During the 2003 Loya Jirga, several religious conservatives took out an advertisement in a local newspaper calling Samar the Salman Rushdie of Afghanistan.

During her 17 years in Pakistan she became a leader for educating Afghan women and girls.

 
About

A platform to celebrate the strength and accomplishments of the Daughters of Afghanistan – ordinary women doing extraordinary things.
Mission
By sharing inspiring stories, poetry, quotes and other media, we aim to empower all the Daughters of Afghanistan to reach for their highest goals… to celebrate the success of their sisters… and to realize the potential that all Afghan women have to improve their lives and the lives of others.
Description
We recognize that there are thousands of positive and inspirational female role models in Afghanistan. We want to highlight their courage, their strength, their accomplishments and their tenacity. We will profile short stories of Afghan women to demonstrate the capacity of the Daughters of Afghanistan to do amazing things. Every Afghan woman has unlimited potential and we want to encourage our female friends to reach their fullest potential while educating our male friends about the important contributions women make to Afghan society.
General Information
We need your help. We are looking for stories, poetry, quotes, photos, videos and any other media that can educate and inspire all Afghans. The women in our stories can be educated and uneducated, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown, from all ethnic tribes, from every province – every Afghan girl and woman is a Daughter of Afghanistan. Help us to recognize them and cherish their work. Please send us a private message with anything you can share. We respect requests for anonymity and will change the names and protect the identity of anyone who wishes to remain anonymous.

Sima founded The Shuhada Organization, which now operates 55 schools for girls and boys in Afghanistan and 3 schools for Afghan refugees in Quetta,Pakistan.

During the Taliban regime, Shuhada’s schools in Central Afghanistan were among the few academic girls’ primary schools; the organization’s girls’ high schools were the only high schools that girls were able to attend in the country.

The Shuhada Organization also ran underground home school classes for girls in Kabul. Following the collapse of the Taliban, these home school classes became the basis for two above ground schools for girls that now teach 800 students.

She is currently the head of Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC).

In this position, she oversees the conduct of human rights education programs across Afghanistan, the implementation of a nationwide women’s rights education program, and monitoring and investigation of human rights abuses across the country. Dr. Samar convened the Commission, which is the first Human Rights Commission in Afghanistan’s history.

From December 22, 2001 until June 22, 2002, Dr. Sima Samar served as the Deputy Chair and Minister of Women’s Affairs for the Interim Administration of Afghanistan. Dr. Samar was one of only two women cabinet ministers in the Interim Administration of Afghanistan’s government.

During this Administration, Sima established the first-ever Afghanistan Ministry of Women’s Affairs. Among other accomplishments, the Ministry won the right of women government employees to return to their jobs and to keep their seniority, oversaw the re-entry of girls to schools, launched a women’s rights legal department, and opened a school for married girls offering tailoring, literacy, and embroidery courses at the Ministry’s headquarters.

She is one of the 4 main subject in Sally Armstrong’s 2004 documentary Daughters of Afghanistan.

In the documentary, Sima Samar’s work as the Minister of Women’s Affairs and her subsequent fall from  power is shown. she established in 2010 an institute of higher education which called Gawharshad.

This institute has attracted more than 1200 students in in a very short amount of its activities.

Dr. Samar publicly refuses to accept that women must be kept in purdah (secluded from the public) and speaks out against the wearing of the burqa (head-to-foot wrap), which was enforced first by the fundamentalist mujahideen and then by the Taliban.

She also has drawn attention to the fact that many women in Afghanistan suffer from osteomalacia, a softening of the bones, due to an inadequate diet. Wearing the burqa reduces exposure to sunlight and aggravates the situation for women suffering from osteomalacia.

Osteomalacia refers to a softening of your bones, often caused by a vitamin D deficiency. In children, this condition is called rickets. Soft bones are more likely to bow and fracture than are harder, healthy bones.

Osteomalacia is not the same as osteoporosis, another bone disorder that can also lead to bone fractures. Osteomalacia results from a defect in the bone-building process, while osteoporosis develops due to a weakening of previously constructed bone.

Muscle weakness and achy bone pain are the major sign and symptom of osteomalacia. Treatment for osteomalacia involves replenishing low levels of vitamin D and calcium, and treating any underlying disorders that may be causing the deficiencies.

 

 
Sima Samar, Chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human
Rights Commission, speaks at Afganistan Towards 2014 Conference, April 11, 2013 Copenhagen

She has been recognized for her leadership and courage by dozens of human and women’s rights organizations globally, and continues her work in Afghanistan. She has also served as the United Nations special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Sudan from August 2005 till June 2009.

Sima has paid a heavy price for her commitment on a personal level.

Yet despite the difficulties she is happy with the work she does. She has said in the past that her work may be only a drop in the ocean, but at least she feels that that drop is something positive.
 

Dr. Sima Samar has received numerous international awards for her work on human rights and democracy, including:

• 1994 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership;
• 1995 Global Leader for Tomorrow from the World Economic Forum in Switzerland;
• The 1998 100 Heroines Award in the United States;
• The Paul Grunninger Human Rights Award, Paul Grunninger Foundation, Switzerland March 2001;
• The Voices of Courage Award, Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, New York, June 2001;
• The John Humphrey Freedom Award, Rights & Democracy, Canada 2001;
• Ms. magazine, Women of the Year on behalf of Afghan Women, USA December 2001;
• Women of the Month, Toronto, Canada, December 2001;
• Best Social Worker Award, Mailo Trust Foundation, Quetta, Pakistan March 2001;
• International Human Rights Award, International Human Rights Law Group, Washington, DC April 2002;
• Freedom Award, Women’s Association for Freedom and Democracy, Barcelona July 2002;
• Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, New York October 2002;
• The Perdita Huston Human Rights Award 2003;
• Profile in Courage Award 2004; and
• One of A Different View’s 15 Champions of World Democracy in January 2008 
• Peace Prize of the City of Ieper (Ypres) Belgium, 2008
• Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award, December 2008
• Honorary Officer of the Order of Canada, 2009
• Right Livelihood Award, 2012
• Honorary Doctorate from Salem State University in May of 2013

 
 
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A Celebration of Women™

welcomes this powerhouse of caring into our global alumni with open arms, looking forward to many collaborations for the betterment of the education and lives of all women and children.

 

 

Brava Sima!