Niloofa Rahmani’s rapid ascent has been a turbulent one.
Her military career took off at the age
of 18, when she joined the Afghan Air Force. That was in 2011, the first year
women were allowed to join. At 21, Rahmani made history as the country’s first
female fixed-wing military pilot. She was named aircraft commander last year
and has since become a global symbol of female empowerment, earning the
prestigious International Women of Courage Award from the U.S. State Department
in March.
But for every milestone the 23-year-old
achieves, she faces an even greater risk. The biggest danger isn’t in the sky,
where she flies soldiers to battle in a Cessna 208 turboprop, but on the
ground: She and her family are plagued with death threats from the Taliban and
even her extended family, who are shaken by Rahmani’s position in a
male-dominated field, The Wall Street Journal reported this week.
“Had I known,” Rahmani told the Journal,
“I would never have put my family through this.” Her sister suffered a divorce,
her brother has been attacked twice, and her father, who always dreamed of
becoming a pilot himself, lost his job owing to harassment—all because of
Rahmani’s ground-breaking role in the Air Force. She told the Journal
she might not be alive if it weren’t for the support of her immediate
family.
Col. Bahadur Khan, a spokesperson for
the Afghan Air Force, claimed it’s not just Rahmani who’s under attack—he said
male and female Afghan pilots are affected equally by harassment. But in a
country where nearly every advance for women is opposed by many and met with
protest, it’s difficult not to view the threats as gendered. The Taliban’s
oppressive five-year rule ended in 2001, but its fundamentalist interpretation
of Islamic law continues to shape cultural attitudes about women, who are often treated as second-class citizens.
President Ashraf Ghani pledged to
promote the status of women when he took office last year, but Human Rights Watch cites his election and growing pressure from Taliban
insurgents as key factors leading to a decline in the country’s human rights
that began in 2014. A report released Wednesday by the United Nations
Assistance Mission in Afghanistan showed that violence in the fight against the
Taliban hit a record high
last year. Women and children
are the hardest hit.
In the last two years, several historic
firsts in Afghanistan have been celebrated globally by the media—the first
female cab driver, the first female police chief—but women’s progress has
largely stalled. Last month, Ghana selected Anisa Rassouli to become the
country’s first female supreme court judge, but her nomination was rejected by the parliament, who saw her unfit for the role because she happened to
menstruate. A month prior, Ghani had appointed Seema Joyenda to became the
nation’s second female governor. She’s likely to face the same opposition
that’s kept Habiba Sarobi, appointed a governor in 2005, from ever setting foot
in office.
Now, just as Rahmani is soaring to
international fame, she’s considering stepping down from her cockpit and
putting the brakes on her dream job. “I never thought I would want to quit,”
Rahmani told the Journal. But faced with an increasing threat of
violence against her and her family, she may have no alternative.
(from a current news article)
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