Afghan activist wins Mother Teresa Award

“Women can wear the burka if they wish to do so but it shouldn’t be forced on them.  It affects their health as it covers the entire body and doesn’t allow sunrays to go into the body. This leads to deficiency  of vitamin D and results in poor bone health, ” said Dr Sima Samar, chief of Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, who was in the city on Wednesday to receive the Mother Teresa Award instituted by the Harmony Foundation.

Samar has continuously fought for human rights of girls and women in Taliban ruled Afghanistan. A medical doctor by training, Samar fled to Pakistan in 1984 when her husband was arrested 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 because she criticised sharia law in an interview with a Canadian newspaper. She had been heading the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission since 2002.

Speaking to DNA, Samar said, “Despite decades of adverse conditions, girls in Afghanistan are now going back to schools. In medical schools 40% of the students are girls. There are women in the field of media and engineering too. But we have a long way to go. Only 27% children (nine million) are in school now. The society is still male dominated. Illiteracy is high, so are cases of domestic violence.” Over 4,000 cases of domestic violence were registered with the Afghanistan Human Rights Commission in the last seven months, added Samar. Praising the Hamid Karzai government’s efforts to rebuild the nation, she said with pride that their human rights commission is the strongest in the region.

Reacting on the Taliban’s attack on Malala Yousafzai, she said, “It was an unfortunate incident but it forced Pakistan to accept the presence of the Taliban in their country.” She also expressed satisfaction over the Indian government’s  enormous support in rebuilding Afghanistan.