The Afghan women’s rights activist who says the world should talk to the Taliban

Afghan-American women’s rights activist Mahbouba Seraj says it is time to engage diplomatically with the Taliban, whose regime has been globally ostracized.

HONG KONG — In August 2021, when U.S.-led forces were withdrawing from Afghanistan and evacuation flights were being overwhelmed by people desperate to leave with them, Mahbouba Seraj decided to stay.

Seraj, 75, an Afghan-American women’s rights activist and founder of the nonprofit Afghan Women’s Network, had been in Afghanistan since 2003, when she moved back with a mission to help the country’s women and girls. More than 25 years earlier, Seraj — the niece of the country’s former king — had been forced into exile by Afghanistan’s Communist government, settling in the United States.

Mahbouba Seraj, a journalist and women's rights activist, pictured in Kabul, Afghanistan on Sept. 23, 2021. Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images fileAfghanistan had been transformed in the years since Seraj’s return, particularly for women and girls. While poverty, violence and enduring conservative social norms still forced many Afghan women to restrict their lives, under the U.S.-backed government, some had grown accustomed to rights they were denied under Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, re-entering public life, attending university and participating in government.

But in 2021, that government was being toppled, leaving the Taliban poised to take over once again and Afghan women facing an uncertain future.

“I knew that they are going to be needing some kind of support, at least something from the past that remained, so that will give them the feeling that, okay, things have not gone to hell completely,” Seraj told NBC News in an interview in Hong Kong in November.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/afghan-womens-rights-activist-says-world-talk-taliban-rcna127126

---