Farzana Kochai, member of the Afghan Parliament and activist, was a child when the Taliban last occupied Afghanistan. She remembers the ban on girls attending school and on women working, and women needing a chaperone if they wanted to go outside their homes.
Kochai is now risking her life to speak out in order to preserve something of the freedoms and democracy gained over the past 20 years.
After being in a state of shock for the first days of the Taliban occupation of Kabul, she then became the first female Afghan politician to participate in political debate—broadcast to the world—she says.
“We talked about the … future of women and the use of Parliament in the future of the regime that is going to be formed in Afghanistan.”
“I choose to stay here … to be with my people, my women, in my country, as we can’t just leave. All of us—we can’t leave. And here we need some people to speak up for us.”
Hosted by NTD journalist Brendon Fallon, Wide Angle is following the latest political developments in the United States and abroad, and finding the connection between these and the larger global trends of our times.
