Malalai Joya


Malalai Joya is an activist, writer, and a politician from Afghanistan. She served as a Parliamentarian in the National Assembly of Afghanistan from 2005 until early 2007, after being dismissed for publicly denouncing the presence of warlords and war criminals in the Afghan Parliament. She was an outspoken critic of the Karzai administration and its western supporters, particularly the United States.
Her suspension in May 2007 generated protest internationally and appeals for her reinstatement were signed by high-profile writers, intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, and politicians including members of parliament from Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain. She was called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan" by the BBC.
In 2010, Time magazine placed Malalai Joya on their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Foreign Policy Magazine listed Malalai Joya in its annual list of the Top 100 Global Thinkers. On 8 March 2011, The Guardian listed her among "Top 100 women: activists and campaigners". In 2021, Joya was forced under threat from the Taliban regime to leave Afghanistan and live in exile.
WWW malalaijoya.com

Early and personal life

Joya was born on 25 April 1978, in the Farah Province, in western Afghanistan. Her father was a former medical student who lost a leg while fighting in the Soviet–Afghan War. In 1982, when she was 4 years old, her family fled Afghanistan to live as refugees in neighboring Iran. She got involved in humanitarian work while in eighth grade:
Joya returned to Afghanistan in 1998, during the Taliban's reign. As a young woman she worked as a social activist and was named a director of a non-governmental group, in the western provinces of Herat and Farah. She is married, but has not revealed the name of her husband due to fear for his safety.

Speech at the 2003 loya jirga

Malalai Joya gained international attention when, as an elected delegate to the Loya Jirga convened to ratify the Constitution of Afghanistan, she spoke out publicly against the domination of warlords on 17 December 2003. She said:
Some delegates applauded her speech, but others turned to shock and dissatisfaction, including the chief of the Loya Jirga, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi who called her "infidel" and "communist", and ordered her out of the assembly. Some delegates were heard shouting death threats. After some representatives intervened her expulsion, Joya returned to the assembly, but refused to apologize after being asked by Mojadeddi.
World Pulse wrote:

Political appointments and speaking engagements

Joya ran in the 2005 Afghan parliamentary election. She was elected to the 249-seat National Assembly, or Wolesi Jirga in September 2005, as a representative of Farah Province, winning the second highest number of votes in the province, with 7.3 percent of the vote. She was the youngest member of the Afghan Parliament elected in the 2005 elections.
At an impromptu news conference after the swearing-in ceremony in December 2005, Joya offered her "condolences" to the people of Afghanistan "for the presence of warlords, drug lords and criminals" in the Parliament. "The people of Afghanistan have recently escaped the Taliban cage but still they are trapped in the cage of those who are called warlords" Joya continued her stance against the inclusion of alleged war criminals in the Islamic Republic government of Afghanistan.
The BBC has called Joya "the most famous woman in Afghanistan." In a 27 January 2007 interview with BBC News, which was reported internationally, Joya commented on her personal political mission amid continuous death threats, saying:
"I received floods of insults: whore, crazy, unfaithful, communist... A deluge of threats: rape, kidnapping, assassination... A bomb exploded in the crowd waiting for me one day at a meeting; My offices were spied on and my teams tried to trap them. I have already survived four murder attempts. My determination will not waver. My life, of course, is complicated. I change roofs every night. And during the day, I only travel around Kabul by taxi, camouflaged under the burqa. It's difficult for my family, for my husband. But I have the support of the people. Unwavering and ardent. They will kill me but they will not kill my voice, because it will be the voice of all Afghan women. You can cut the flower, but you cannot stop the coming of spring."
In 2006, American daily newspaper The Washington Post said of Joya: "Her truth is that warlords should not be permitted to hide behind 'the mask of democracy to hold on to their chairs' and their pernicious pursuits at the expense of poor, 'barefoot' Afghans who remain voiceless and disillusioned. The warlords are corrupt 'war criminals' who should be tried, and incorrigible 'drug dealers' who brought the country to its knees, she said."
Joya appeared at the Federal Convention of Canada's New Democratic Party in Quebec City, Quebec, on 10 September 2006, supporting party leader Jack Layton and the NDP's criticism of the NATO-led mission in southern Afghanistan. She said, "No nation can donate liberation to another nation."
On 13 September that year she addressed gatherings at McGill University in Montreal and at the University of Ottawa, where she expressed her disappointment with US actions in Afghanistan.
After her speech, Prof. Denis Rancourt of the University of Ottawa, wrote in an article about Joya: "Her talk was a sharp blade cutting thru the thick web of US-Canada war propaganda... All MPs need to take a lesson from Malalai Joya.",
Joya visited Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, on 8 March 2007, as a guest of the United Nations Development Fund for Women, and spoke about women's rights in Afghanistan in honor of International Women's Day.
Joya returned to Canada in November 2007 and addressed 400 people at the Steelworkers Hall in Toronto. She then addressed a small group of union activists and activists at the Ontario Federation of Labour.
In November 2008, Joya visited the Norway Social Forum, and spoke before the 1900 participants. She also participated in a debate with then Norwegian Foreign Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, and asked Norway to pull its troops out of Afghanistan.
In December 2008, Joya was invited by Amnesty International India to New Delhi for the International Week of Justice Festival, 5–10 December 2008, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Joya participated in two public forums for the festival at Jamia Millia Islamia university and at Alliance Francaise on the issues related to post-war Afghanistan, female empowerment and torture.
In October–November 2009 Joya undertook a book tour to the United States and Canada and addressed anti-war rallies and gatherings. She called for withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan.
When then President of the United States, Barack Obama, was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, Noam Chomsky wrote in an article syndicated by The New York Times: "The Nobel Peace Prize committee might well have made truly worthy choices, prominent among them the remarkable Afghan activist Malalai Joya."
On 24 November 2009, British political and cultural magazine New Statesman ranked Joya in the sixth place on its list of "The 50 people who matter today... for good and ill", calling her "Afghanistan's answer to Aung San Suu Kyi."
Because she was "unemployed" and "lives underground", the United States denied Joya a travel visa in March 2011, which sparked a public campaign by her supporters to pressure the US government. She was scheduled to speak at several different places in the United States, including Pace University in Manhattan, New York City, and St. Mary's College of Maryland. Joya stated that " has probably requested the U.S. to not let me enter... because I am exposing the wrong policies of the U.S. and its puppet regime at the international level." However, the United States Department of State later explained that a visa has been issued to Joya. Joya started her US speaking tour on 25 March 2011 from Boston, Massachusetts, where, along with Professor Noam Chomsky, she gave a presentation on the Afghan war to 1200 people at Memorial Church of Harvard University. Joya said that:
"We want the end of this brutal war, this occupation, as soon as possible. During these ten years, tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, most of them innocent women, children and men."

Parliament statements, attack and suspension

On 7 May 2006, Joya was physically and verbally attacked by fellow members of parliament after accusing several colleagues of being "warlords" and unfit for service in the new Afghan government. "I said there are two kinds of mujahedeen in Afghanistan," Joya told the Associated Press. "One kind fought for independence, which I respect, but the other kind destroyed the country and killed 60,000 people." In response, angered lawmakers shouted death threats and threw empty plastic water bottles at Joya, who was shielded by sympathetic colleagues.
In response to such threats, Joya continues to speak out against those she believes to be former mujahedeen in Afghanistan, stating:
On 21 May 2007, fellow members of the Wolesi Jirga voted to suspend Joya for three years from the legislature, citing that she had broken Article 70 of the Parliament, which had banned Wolesi Jirga members from openly criticizing each other. Joya had compared the Wolesi Jirga to a "stable or zoo" on an television interview for TOLO, and later called other members of parliament "criminals" and "drug smugglers." She is reported to have referred to the House as "worse than a stable", since " stable is better, for there you have a donkey that carries a load and a cow that provides the milk."
Joya said the vote was a "political conspiracy" and that she had been told Article 70 was written specifically for her saying "since I've started my struggle for human rights in Afghanistan, for women's rights, these criminals, these drug smugglers, they've stood against me from the first time I raised my voice at the Loya Jirga."
In a statement made by Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, wrote: "Malalai Joya is a staunch defender of human rights and a powerful voice for Afghan women, and she shouldn't have been suspended from parliament."
People in Farah, Nangarhar, Baghlan, Kabul and some other provinces of Afghanistan staged protests against Joya's suspension.
On 21 June 2007, one month after Joya was suspended, Joya supporters in Melbourne staged protests to the Afghan government to reinstate Joya to the parliament. In November 2007, an international letter was launched with a number of prominent signatories supporting the call for her reinstatement to parliament.
In January 2008, after her suspension, Joya spoke to Rachel Shields and said that the government was not democratically elected and they were "trying to use the country's Islamic law as a tool with which to limit women's rights."
On 18 April 2008, the Governing Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, unanimously adopted a resolution at its 182nd session in Cape Town in favour of Malalai Joya which "Calls on the authorities at the same time to do everything in their power to identify and bring to justice those making the death threats against Ms. Joya."
On 7 October 2008, six women Nobel Peace Prize laureates in a joint statement supported Malalai Joya: "We commend this courage, and call for Joya's reinstatement to Afghanistan's national parliament… Like our sister Aung San Suu Kyi, Joya is a model for women everywhere seeking to make the world more just."
During her suspension, Joya stayed active by giving interviews to western journalists and by writing articles for western newspapers on her views on the situation of Afghanistan. In 2009, she made a tour through the United States and Canada to advocate her cause and to promote her book.
Shukria Barakzai, a fellow MP and women's rights activist, has also criticised the legislature in similar terms: "Our parliament is a collection of lords. Warlords, drug lords, crime lords." She defended Joya, reporting that some parliamentarians threatened to rape her.
In the mid-night of 10 March 2012, Joya's office in Farah City was stormed by some unknown armed men, in the gun-battle, two of her guards were seriously injured, but as Joya was in Kabul in the time of attack, she was safe.

Announcement of political comeback

In February 2010, at the event of the presentation in Paris of "Au nom de mon peuple", the French publication of her memoir A Woman Among Warlords, Joya expressed her wish to make a political comeback in the Afghan parliamentary elections scheduled for September. Allegedly, supporters in five Afghan provinces asked her to represent them. These included Nangarhar, Nimroz, Takhar, Kabul and also Farah — the western province that sent her first to the loya jirga that ratified the Constitution, then elected her to Parliament in 2005. Preparing for her comeback, she said she would prefer for security reasons to run as a candidate in the capital. However, at the occasion of the marriage of one of her body guards in July 2010, she revoked her earlier announcement to participate in the parliamentary elections.
On 21 July 2012, Joya paid a visit to Heart and Farah in western Afghanistan where she was warmly welcomed by people.
On 21 March 2013, Joya addressed the Nowruz festival in Khewa district of Nengrahar province in South of Afghanistan. Around 5000 people gathered at this event to celebrate Afghanistan's New Year.
On 24 March 2013, Joya joined the support network in defense of American activist and whistle-blower Chelsea Manning. She published a photo holding a sign which read "I am Bradley Manning!" She called her "great anti-war soldiers, who represent the shining face of America."
In 2016, Joya criticized peace talks which saw Afghan politician Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a long-time Islamist insurgent leader, and his militants pardoned in return for them ending hostilities with the Afghan government. She claimed the agreement "signals more horror and bloodshed" and said that Gulbuddin was a "devious rascal".
In 2017, Joya stated that things had become worse for activists since the fall of the Taliban regime, claiming "Under the Taliban, we had only one enemy – now we have Taliban, warlords, Islamic State, occupation forces that keep dropping bombs, and the so-called technocrats, who have compromised in exchange for money and power."

Islamic Emirate

After Fall of Kabul to the Taliban on 15 Aug 2021, Joya posted a video shot in burqa from inside a running car in the streets of Kabul on her Facebook page and said that she would continue her fight in Afghanistan.
In 2021, she was seen in Catalonia, Spain, where she and her family were given political asylum after her exile. In 2025, Joya attended a meeting at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium.

Autobiography

Joya wrote a memoir with Canadian writer Derrick O'Keefe. The US and Canadian version of the book was published in October 2009 by Scribner under the title of A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice in 224 pages. The Australian and British versions were published by Pan Macmillan and Rider under the title of Raising My Voice: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dares to Speak Out. It has so far been published in German titled Ich erhebe meine Stimme – Eine Frau kämpft gegen den Krieg in Afghanistan, in Norwegian under the title Kvinne blant krigsherrer – Afghanistans modigste stemme and in Dutch under the title Een vrouw tussen krijgsheren and in Japanese under the title Together with Afghan People. The book will be available, in translation, in France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Indonesia and Israel.
Kirkus Reviews wrote about Joya's book, calling it: "a chilling, vital memoir that reveals hidden truths about Afghanistan and directly addresses the misguided policies of the United States."
Library Journal wrote: "This book will interest those who seek stories of real-life heroines risking death every day for their nation."
Publishers Weekly wrote: "Joya was outspoken in condemning these warlords she called "criminals" and "antiwomen," enduring the shutting off of her microphone, assassination threats and, finally, suspension from Parliament. Joya is on a dangerous, eye-opening mission to uncover truth and expose the abuse of power in Afghanistan, and her book will work powerfully in her favor."
The New York Times Book Review wrote: " bears witness to the horrific experience known as 'being female in Afghanistan'."
Noam Chomsky wrote: "Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this inspiring memoir is that despite the horrors she relates, Malalai Joya leaves us with hope that the tormented people of Afghanistan can take their fate into their own hands if they are released from the grip of foreign powers, and that they can reconstruct a decent society from the wreckage left by decades of intervention and the merciless rule of the Taliban and the warlords who the invaders have imposed upon them."
In 2023, Joya's writing was analysed by Anisa Fathima for the ''International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities.''

Awards and honors

Books

Joya's life and political activity have inspired an adventure novel by Thomas Pistoia published in Italy as La leggenda del Burqa.

Films

  • Malalai Joya , August 2010, by Glyn Strong
  • Malalai Joya champions rape victims, 2008, by Glyn Strong
  • A Woman Among Warlords. Directed by Eva Mulvad. Aired on the Wide Angle TV series in September 2007.
  • Enemies of Happiness, 2006, directed by Eva Mulvad
  • Afghanistan Unveiled 2004, by Nicolas Delloye, Aina Productions