[Home] [Timeline] [Quiz] [Women Making History]
Women of History
MEENA Born 1957
Can you imagine
living in a country where you are forbidden education just
because you are female? This happened in Meena's country
and she was brave enough to fight it. Meena was born in
1957 in Kabul, Afghanistan. She attended Malabi High School,
a famous girls' school. Today that school is deserted. The
Taliban destroyed it. The Taliban forbids women and girls
to go to school, have a job or leave home unaccompanied
by a male relative. Execution is among the penalties for
breaking the rules.
In Meena's youth, there were lots of people who believed in equal rights, especially for women. Meena insisted that Afghanistan would only be free when women's rights were secure. She left university to organise the women of Afghanistan. Meena believed that the women would not have anything until they worked together and she was determined to give silent women a voice. She called the women 'sleeping lions' who would play a large part in the Afghan social revolution when awakened.
When she was 20 years old she started the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan RAWA. Her goal was to unite women and get them involved in the fight for equal rights.
In 1978 Afghanistan's problems grew worse when it was invaded by Russia. Meena was no longer fighting only for women's freedom but for the freedom of her nation.
While continuing her fight against the Taliban she also led protests against the soviet leaders. Meena focused on supporting female victims of war. RAWA began programs in Quetta, Pakistan to help female Afghan refugees and their families. It started the Malalai Hospital and two schools to teach refugee children their rights. RAWA also set up centres to teach handicrafts and nursing to the women. RAWA gave advice to the refugees, helping trace missing women and their family members and moved families away from battlefield areas.
At the end of 1981, by invitation of the French Government Meena represented the Afghan resistance movement at the French Socialist Party Congress. The Soviet delegation at the Congress, headed by Boris Ponamaryev, shamefacedly left the hall as participants cheered when Meena started waving a victory sign. Besides France, she also visited several other European countries and met their prominent personalities.
Her active social work and effective advocacy against the views of the fundamentalists and the puppet regime provoked the wrath of the Russians and the fundamentalist forces alike and she was assassinated by agents of KHAD (Afghanistan branch of KGB) and their fundamentalist accomplices in Quetta, Pakistan, on February 4,1987. RAWA the only women's political resistance organisation in Afghanistan continues to fight for her dream.