She grows up among her extended family (until her father’s assassination in 1978 results in her eventually moving to Kabul with her mother and becoming the first girl in her family to attend school). The unwanted 19th daughter of an MP of Badakhshan-one of the country’s poorest, wildest, and most remote provinces-Koofi learns early on how difficult it is to be female in Afghanistan’s patriarchal society, where wives of poor rural farmers are considered less valuable than the goats they tend. Please read and enjoy – and join us for our next Global Issues Book Discussion on December 2.Koofi, Afghanistan’s first female parliament deputy speaker, tells her heartbreaking life story and, through the letters she writes to her two daughters, shares her hopes for their future, which are interspersed throughout the book. The Favored Daughter, published in 2012, is an autobiographical memoir in which Koofi recalls her life’s story, interspersed with letters to her own two daughters. Watch an Aljazeera interview with Fawzia Koofi on September 4, 2021.

With the help of the Qatari government, she was able to escape and fled to Qatar on Aughowever, she has vowed to return to Afghanistan and continue to fight for women’s rights. With the fall of the Afghan government in August 2021, Fawzia Koofi was placed under house arrest by the Taliban. Shortly afterward, she survived a second assassination attempt. In 2020, Koofi was part of a team that met in Doha, Qatar to negotiate peace talks with the Taliban.

An attempt was made on her life in March 2010. While in parliament, she worked to promote legislation for universal education, equal rights for women and combatting political corruption. She was elected to the Afghan parliament in 2005 and went on to become Vice President of the National Assembly, the first woman in Afghanistan to hold this position. From 2002 to 2004 she worked for UNICEF as a Child Protection Officer.

Koofi’s political career began in 2001, after the fall of the Taliban, when she launched her “Back to School” campaign, promoting girls’ education. She went on to study political science and received a master’s degree in business. She persuaded her parents to allow her to attend school, and became the only girl in her family to do so. The book chosen is The Favored Daughter: One Woman’s Fight to Lead Afghanistan into the Future by Fawzia Koofi.įawzia Koofi was one of 23 children born into a polygamous family in a remote province of Afghanistan. At the end of the Global Issues Book Discussion on International Literacy Day, September 8, the Human Rights Team announced its selection for FAWCO’s next global read.

The favored daughter by fawzia koofi