Massouda Jalal

Dr Massouda Jalal at the UN Headquarters

Dr. Massouda Jalal is the only and first woman in the history of Afghanistan who ran for the Office of the President of Afghanistan in 2002, and again in 2004. She holds the distinction of being the first woman to compete for Presidency in Afghanistan, a highly conservative society where women’s engagement in public life was considered improper and unacceptable. Dr. Jalal emerged as a leading voice of Afghan women in 2001 after her election as the Representative to the 2002 Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly). While serving her term, she became one of the frontrunners for the position of Interim President, opposite to ex-president Hamid Karzai.

She was also the only woman candidate in the 2004 Afghan presidential election.^[1][2] In 2004 election, Jalal was placed 6th among 17 male candidates. She has a background as a pediatrician, professor at the Kabul Medical University, and a UN World Food Programme National Senior Officer. She is fluent in Persian, Pashto, English and Hindi/Urdu and moderately fluent in Russian and German.

Early life and education[]

Born to a middle class family in Kapisa Province of Afghanistan, one of seven children, Jalal moved to Kabul to attend high school. After scoring the second highest marks at the national level in the National College Entrance Exam of Afghanistan (Konkor), she attended the Kabul Medical University, where she later joined as a faculty. Amidst raging war in the early 1990s, she and her academic colleagues founded the Human Rights Commission which reported human rights violations to the UN Special Envoy to Afghanistan. She was a member of the faculty in the Kabul Medical University until 1996, when the Taliban government had her removed. Jalal, a psychiatrist and pediatrician, also worked at several Kabul hospitals, and after her removal from the university faculty, as a United Nations National Senior Program Officer within the World Food Programme. Under the Taliban rule, her efforts for women and girls’ right to education and work led her to get arrested for political reasons. She was released from prison through UN HQ’s intervention. Her husband is a professor of Law and Political Science at Kabul University; they have three children.

Career[]

Jalal was elected as a Representative of her Kabul neighborhood to the 2002 Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) of Afghanistan. When she ran for the Office of the Interim Government, her name was placed into consideration to lead Afghanistan as Interim President, but she was finally placed a second to ex-president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai.

From 2001 – 2004, she was the only Afghan woman who was part of the delegation of Afghanistan during the peace negotiations. In this role, she actively participated in formal peace negotiations. Serving as the Minister of Women's Affairs (2004-2006) in the cabinet of government of Afghanistan, she left behind a string of legacies that includes the framework for the National Action Plan for the Women of Afghanistan (NAPWA), a ten-year plan for women to liberate Afghan women from poverty and promote their participation in public life, as well as a draft of the Law on the Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW) which was also adopted later as a decree to liberate Afghan women from fear, violence and oppression. Her efforts to strive to promote human rights, women rights, equality, justice and peace during her work as the Minister of Women’s Affairs is published in two books.

Ever since she left working for the government of Afghanistan in 2006, she has been engaged in human rights, civil society, social, and political activism. She is the founder of the Jalal Foundation, a non-profit, non-government organization that brings together women’s councils and organizations around to build women’s capacity, protect women’s rights, promote women’s political participation, and bring the voices of women in international fora. Dr. Massouda Jalal has also founded the Freedom Message Weekly Newspaper—an activist tabloid that exposed the abuses of women’s right and human rights and promoted democracy and freedom of expression in Afghanistan.

Her tireless efforts and activism have been recognized and appreciated by many international awards and honors. She has received the “Human Rights Global Prize” of the United Nations; the Leadership Award for “Outstanding Contribution to Women Upliftment” from the World CSR Congress; the “Outstanding Visionary Women Leadership Award” from the World Women Leadership Congress. Dr. Jalal’s efforts have also been recognized through awards and honors by other international agencies such as the International Human Rights and Law Group, the Center for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and so on.

Dr Jalal: FrontRunner Documentary about Dr Massouda Jalal.

She is the author of several publications, the latest of which is a book entitled “Hanging by the Thread: Afghan Women’s Rights and Security Threats”, an articulation of her perspectives in the country’s peace and political processes. Her past writings include hundreds of articles on Afghan democracy, rule of law, women’s rights and violence against women both in Dari and English, many of which were published in local media and international press.

Dr Jalal's recent book!

More recently, during her third run for the Office of President in 2019, Dr Jalal boldly critiqued extremism and the violations of human rights and women’s rights in the national and international media. This resulted in several attacks on her and her family members including her house and office getting bombed by the enemies of peace and democracy.

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Massouda Jalal.

• http://mowa.gov.af/english/?page_id=30
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  Dr Jalal in 2004 Presidential Elections
  Frontrunner, New View Films, feature documentary about Jalal's campaign for President
• Jalal Foundation