“I sit and wait for them to come and kill me. I can’t leave my family. ” The woman-mayor of the Afghan city of Zarifa Gafari refused to leave the country

In an interview with Western media, she stated that she wants to create different living conditions for the next generation of women – without fear, but with new opportunities.

In Afghanistan, the mayor is appointed by the president. Zarifa Gafari ran in 2017, her competitors were only men, but in 2018, President Ashraf Ghani appointed her to the post of mayor of Maidan Shar.

On the very first working day, a crowd of men threw stones at Zarifa’s office. After this protest, the new mayor announced that she would seek the right to take office, whatever the cost, even if she had to set herself on fire in the square in front of the palace. transfers Forbes. Zarifa is not the first woman to hold a senior government position in Afghanistan, but her predecessors have led the locally progressive regions where women have some rights – the provinces of Daykundi and Bamiyan.

On his Twitter, Gafari writes that he dreams of seeing Afghanistan as beautiful, calm and progressive.