Sima Samar

Samar was born on 3 February 1957 in Jaghori, in the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan. She belongs to the ethnic Hazara. She obtained a degree in medicine in February 1982 at Kabul University. She practiced medicine at a government hospital in Kabul, but after a few months was forced to flee for her safety to her native Jaghori, where she provided medical treatment to patients throughout the remote areas of central Afghanistan. She has also remained the head of the human rights commission in Afghanistan.

In 1984, the government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan arrested her husband, and Samar and her young son fled to neighboring Pakistan. She then worked as a doctor at the refugee branch of the Mission Hospital. Distressed by the total lack of healthcare facilities for Afghan refugee women, she established in 1989 the Shuhada Organization and Shuhada Clinic in Quetta, Pakistan. The Shuhada Organization was dedicated to the provision of healthcare to Afghan women and girls, training of medical staff and education. In the following years, further branches of the clinic/hospital were opened throughout Afghanistan.

After living as a refugee for over a decade, Samar returned to Afghanistan in 2002 to assume a cabinet post in the Afghan Transitional Administration led by Hamid Karzai. In the interim government, she served as Deputy President and then as Minister for Women's Affairs. She was the 6th woman to become Cabinet Minister in Afghanistan,The first five was Kubra Noorzai in 1965, Shafiqa Ziaie in 1971, Anahita Ratebzad in 1976, Masuma Esmati-Wardak in 1990 and Saleha Farooq Etemadi in 1990. the first Minister for Women's Affairs since Shafiqa Ziaie in the 1970s, and the first woman to become minister since 1992.Rahimi Fahima. ( 1977, with 1~ update of 1985 by Nancy Hatch Dupree), Women in Afghanistan /Frauen in Afghanistan, Kabul

She was forced into resignation from her post after she was threatened with death and harassed for questioning conservative Islamic laws, especially sharia law, during an interview in Canada with a Persian-language newspaper. During the 2003 Loya Jirga, several religious conservatives took out an advertisement in a local newspaper calling Samar the Salman Rushdie of Afghanistan.

Samar headed the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) from 2002 - 2019. She also established Gawharshad Institute of Higher Education in 2010, which has attracted more than 1200 students in a very short amount of its activities.Gawharshad Institute of Higher Education#Board of trustees In 2019, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Samar as one of eight members of the High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement under the leadership of Federica Mogherini and Donald Kaberuka.[https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/personnel-appointments/2019-12-03/high-level-panel-internal-displacement High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement] United Nations, press release of December 3, 2019.

Samar publicly refuses to accept that women must be kept in purdah (secluded from the public) and speaks out against the practice of wearing the burqa (head-to-foot wrap), which was enforced first by the fundamentalist mujahideen and then by the Taliban. She also has drawn attention to the fact that many women in Afghanistan suffer from osteomalacia, a softening of the bones, due to an inadequate diet. Wearing the burqa reduces exposure to sunlight and aggravates the situation for women suffering from osteomalacia.{{Cite journal|last=Minisola|first=Salvatore|date=January 5, 2021|title=Osteomalacia and Vitamin D Status: A Clinical Update 2020|journal=JBMR Plus|volume=5|issue=1|pages=e10447|doi=10.1002/jbm4.10447|pmid=33553992|pmc=7839817}}

Samar is one of the four main subjects in Sally Armstrong's 2004 documentary Daughters of Afghanistan. In the documentary, Sima Samar's work as the Minister of Women's Affairs and her subsequent fall from power is shown.

Samar has received numerous international awards[http://www.perditahustonaward.com/awardees/2003_awardee.htm Honors listed in citation for the 2003 Perdita Huston Human Rights Award] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060901060554/http://www.perditahustonaward.com/awardees/2003_awardee.htm |date=2006-09-01 }} accessed at Oct 20, 2006 for her work on human rights and democracy, including:

• 1994 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership;
• 1995 Global Leader for Tomorrow from the World Economic Forum in Switzerland;
• The 1998 100 Heroines Award in the United States;
• The Paul Grüninger Human Rights Award, Paul Grüninger Foundation, Switzerland March 2001;
• The Voices of Courage Award, Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, New York, June 2001;
• The John Humphrey Freedom Award, Rights & Democracy, Canada 2001;{{cite web |url=http://www.dd-rd.ca/site/humphrey_award/index.php?subsection=about_the_award |title=John Humphrey Freedom Award 2009 |year=2010 |publisher=Rights & Democracy |accessdate=11 May 2011 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927210443/http://www.dd-rd.ca/site/humphrey_award/index.php?subsection=about_the_award |archivedate=27 September 2011 }}
• Ms. magazine, Women of the Year on behalf of Afghan Women, USA December 2001;
• Women of the Month, Toronto, Canada, December 2001;
• Best Social Worker Award, Mailo Trust Foundation, Quetta, Pakistan March 2001;
• International Human Rights Award, International Human Rights Law Group, Washington, DC April 2002;
• Freedom Award, Women's Association for Freedom and Democracy, Barcelona July 2002;
• Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, New York October 2002;
• The Perdita Huston Human Rights Award 2003;
• Profile in Courage Award 2004; and
• Peace Prize of the City of Ieper (Ypres) Belgium, 2008
• Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award, December 2008{{cite web|url=http://www.tfd.org.tw/english/HTML/ADHRA0408.html |title=The Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award |publisher=Tfd.org.tw |date= |accessdate=2012-05-08}}
• Honorary Officer of the Order of Canada, 2009{{cite web|url=http://www.gg.ca/media/doc.asp?lang=e&DocID=5815|title=Governor General announces 60 new appointments to the Order of Canada|date=July 1, 2009|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20090705124004/http://www.gg.ca/media/doc.asp?lang=e&DocID=5815|archivedate=July 5, 2009}}
• Geuzenpenning, 2011
• Right Livelihood Award, 2012{{cite web|url=http://kabulpress.org/my/spip.php?article125653|title=Alternative Nobel Prize to Hazara Human Rights Activist Sima (...) - Kabul Press کابل پرس|publisher=|accessdate=30 December 2016}}
• Mother Teresa Awards for Social Justice in November 2012.{{cite web|title=Mother Teresa Awards 2012|url=http://www.motherteresaawards.org/2012.htm|publisher=Mother Teresa Awards: A Harmony Foundation Initiatives|accessdate=15 December 2014|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20141215072106/http://www.motherteresaawards.org/2012.htm|archivedate=15 December 2014}}
• Honorary Doctorate from Salem State University in May 2013
• 2013 Allard Prize for International Integrity, Finalist award of CDN$25,000{{cite web|title=Allard Prize Recipient and Honourable Mentions|url=http://www.allardprize.org/recipient-and-honourable-mentions|website=Allard Prize for International Integrity|publisher=Peter A. Allard School of Law|accessdate=17 August 2015}}

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• [http://www.msmagazine.com Ms. magazine] [http://www.msmagazine.com/winter2007/avoiceforthevoiceless.asp "A Voice for the Voiceless"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110526183039/http://www.msmagazine.com/winter2007/avoiceforthevoiceless.asp |date=2011-05-26 }} Winter 2007 conversation with Sima Samar and Ms. executive editor Katherine Spillar.
• [http://www.nejm.org The New England Journal of Medicine] [http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/extract/351/11/1047 "Despite the Odds -- Providing Health Care to Afghan Women"] Vol. 351, No. 11 (2004).
• {{cite web |last1=Samar |first1=Sima |title=My dream of a democratic Afghanistan came true. The country needs another miracle for it to happen again |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-my-dream-of-a-democratic-afghanistan-came-true-the-country-needs/ |website=Opinion |publisher=The Globe and Mail |access-date=23 August 2024 |date=23 February 2024}}

Other Afghan Human Rights Activists:

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20120614184632/http://www.yazdanparast.info/ Qadria Yazdanparast Afghan Human Rights Activist and Law Professor] Yazdanparast on Wiki

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Samar, Sima}}

Category:1957 births

Category:Living people

Category:Afghan physicians

Category:Afghan women physicians

Category:Officers of the Order of Canada

Category:United Nations special rapporteurs

Category:Afghan democracy activists

Category:Afghan human rights activists

Category:Afghan expatriates in Pakistan

Category:People from Quetta

Category:Kabul University alumni

Category:Women's ministers of Afghanistan

Category:Women government ministers of Afghanistan

Category:21st-century Afghan women politicians

Category:21st-century Afghan politicians

Category:Hazara politicians

Category:Politicians of Ghazni Province

Category:Afghan officials of the United Nations

Category:Afghan women's rights activists

Category:Hazara women politicians