Afghanistan. A country blighted by war ever since the Soviet Union rolled its tanks across its border on Christmas Eve 1979.
An estimated one million Afghans were killed in the ensuing occupation over the following ten years along with an estimated 100,000 Soviet soldiers. Little did they know at the time, not least the apparatchiks who initiated it but the war heralded the beginning of the end of the Soviet empire.
Malalai Joya was only four years of age at the time of the invasion. Soon her life and that of her family was upended by the invasion and they were forced to flee as refugees first to Iran and then to Pakistan.
As a nineteen year-old she returned to Afghanistan determined to shape her country and to defend the rights of women against what she describes as the misogyny of the Taliban who came to power in 1996 and the warlords she claims mis-rule the country following the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.
Joya was elected to parliament in 2003 but was expelled in 2007 for her denunciation of the very same warlords. Since then she lives in hiding, moving from one safe house to another but maintains contact with supporters. She is contemplating a bid for the Presidency of Afghanistan in 2019.
Peadar King and cameraman spent time with Malalai in September of this year. Working under armed guard in very tight security movement throughout the country was restricted but they did get to spend time in the capital Kabul and in the country’s fifth biggest city Jalalabad.
