Shukria Barakzai

Afghan politician, journalist and a prominent Muslim feminist. Barakzai was appointed a member of the 2003 loya jirga, a body of representatives from all over Afghanistan that was nominated to discuss and pass the new constitution after the fall of the Taliban. In the October 2004 elections she was elected as a member of the House of the People or Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of the National Assembly of Afghanistan. She is one of 71 women out of 249 MPs.She is one of only a handful of female MPs who speak up for women’s rights, and faces death threats for her views. In November 2014 she was injured in a suicide attack on a convoy in which she was travelling in Kabul. The attack killed three people and injured 17.