Despite frequent death threats and assassination attempts, Malalai Joya is resolute in pursuing a real democracy for the people of Afghanistan.
Joya was born in Afghanistan in 1978, her father was a medical student and her family fled the country when she was four years old. In 1998, Joya returned to Afghanistan whilst the Taliban were still in power and became involved in social and political activism including; teaching girls and campaigned against the Taliban.
In 2003 Joya was elected as a delegate to the Constitutional Loya Jirga where she controversially spoke out against the warlords and the crimes they committed before joining the present government, when the Taliban were in power. In 2005, she became the youngest person elected to the Wolesi Jirga, the Lower House. Women are not unusual in the Afghan parliament, the constitution insists that two women must be elected from each of its 34 provinces. Yet this misrepresents the level of women’s participation in Afghan society, Joya argues that many of these women are the puppets of their male colleagues and are just as corrupt. Joya represents the Farah Province of Afghanistan and received the second highest number of votes in the province in 2005.
In May 2007, Joya was accused of breaching the rules in the parliament by openly insulting other members of the Wolesi Jirga, she argues that her words were taken out of context and that she was not comparing her colleagues to stable or zoo animals, but the legislation they were passing. She was suspended from parliament for the rest of her term.
In 2008, on a visit to London Joya was awarded the Anna Politkovskaya Award for her human rights work.
More recently, Joya was openly critical in the lead up to the Afghan Presidential elections of the legitimacy of the election and its results suggesting that the President is chosen by the US Government rather than the Afghan people. Joya continues to condemn the warlords who make-up a high proportion of the Afghan parliament and denounces their decision to suspend her from the parliament whilst they remain immune to prosecution.
She has also been a vehement critic of the US and NATO occupation in Afghanistan and argues that the civil war within Afghanistan will only get worse whilst foreign troops are there. She calls for international solidarity without foreign soldiers.
To read her article for the Guardian from July 2009 click here.