Afghan teen wins children’s prize for rights fight

AMSTERDAM: A teenager who narrowly escaped after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan three years ago, on Tuesday won the prestigious KidsRights Prize for her fight for women’s rights.

Nila Ibrahimi, 17, followed the likes of environmental activist Greta Thunberg and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai to claim the International Children’s Peace Prize.

“Ibrahimi, an Afghanistan-native, residing in Canada, is courageously fighting for the rights of girls and women in her home country,” organisers said at an event in Amsterdam.

“After recording a powerful protest song that went viral online, she continues to inspire other Afghan girls to assert their rights and stand up to the injustices they face via public speaking and advocacy at global events,” said KidsRights, the Dutch children’s rights foundation behind the initiative.

Taliban authorities have implemented an austere interpretation of Islamic law since returning to power in August 2021 following the withdrawal of US-led forces.

Women and girls are no longer able to study beyond primary school, go to parks, gyms or beauty salons, and are advised to leave their homes only with a male chaperone.

A recent morality law also banned women from speaking loudly in public.

The United Nations has labelled the situation “gender apartheid”, but the Taliban government has rejected concerns as “unfounded… and propaganda based on the say of a few escaped women.”

“Winning the International Children’s Peace Prize will mean that the voices of Afghan women and girls will echo across the world,” Ibrahimi said.

“We must all continue to give them strength and hope in the darkest of times,” she added in a statement after receiving the award.

Ibrahimi last year talked about how her family escaped to Pakistan five days after the fall of Afghanistan. She now lives in Canada.

“While I feel safer in my new home, every single day I think of those girls left behind in Afghanistan,” she told a human rights summit in Geneva last year.

“Left with no hope,” she added.

Nila was selected from 165 nominees from 47 countries and her prize was awarded by the Nobel prize winning Yemeni journalist Tawakkol Karman.

-AFP