The Wire

Last year Time Magazine recognised Suraya Pakzad as one of its top 100 people. 12 years ago the Afghan mother of 6 decided to ignore the Taliban and educate her own daughters and those of her friends. It was a covert operation, secretly teaching the girls to read and write, and it quickly grew and became a movement – now called Voices of Women. Suraya is in Australia on a speaking tour hoping to raise money for the now many projects that she operates to give women in her country education and independence She says in the early days giving lessons was extremely dangerous but they had ways of dealing with raids by the Taliban.