Sahar Fetrat, an MA student in the Department of War Studies, has been chosen by the BBC as one of the most inspiring and influential women of 2021
Sahar features on a list of 100 women from across the world who the BBC recognises for ‘playing their part to reinvent our society, our culture and our world’.
Sahar who is studying a Masters in Conflict, Security and Development, is an Afghan activist fighting against gender stereotypes, sexism and inequality. Her documentary on street harassment in Afghanistan, Do Not Trust My Silence (2013), reveals the abuse she and other Afghan women face on Kabul’s streets, something that was not widely acknowledged before she courageously took out her camera and began filming.
Since then, she has fought for the rights of Afghan women by working in the education unit of Unesco in Afghanistan and with Human Rights Watch.
“I hope to see a day when girls’ access to education is a basic right, not something to fight for. I hope to see Afghan girls fighting for dreams that are higher than the motherland’s mountains.”– Sahar Fetrat