Habiba Sarabi

Habiba Sarabi (born 1956) is an Afghan hematologist, politician and reformer. ¹ She succeeded Sima Samar as Minister of Women's Affairs (2002–2004), and in 2005 became the first woman to govern an Afghan province, holding the governorship of Bamyan until 2013. ¹ Her surname is sometimes spelled Sarobi. ¹

The English article, citing the Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan, places her birth in Sarab, Ghazni province, in 1956; her European Parliament CV and Wikidata instead give Mazar-i-Sharif, and Wikidata also carries a conflicting birth date of 15 February 1958 — all variants are recorded in her data record. ^{1 2} She was the only daughter among five children and spent her youth travelling around the country with her father. ¹ In her own account she walked herself to school against her father's indifference because she was determined to be educated. ³ She moved to Kabul for high school and university medical studies, graduated in 1987, and on a World Health Organization fellowship went to India to complete her studies in hematology. ^{1 4}

During the first Taliban rule, Sarabi fled with her children to Peshawar, Pakistan, while her husband stayed behind in Kabul. ^{1 3} She returned frequently in secret and worked underground as a teacher for girls, both secretly in Afghanistan and in refugee camps in Pakistan; the Magsaysay Foundation records that she supervised, at great personal risk, some eighty underground literacy courses inside Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. ^{1 4} In 1998 she joined the Afghan Institute of Learning and became its general manager, and she was vice president of Humanitarian Assistance for the Women and Children of Afghanistan. ¹

She served as Minister of Women's Affairs — succeeding Sima Samar — and as Minister of Culture and Education. ^{1 5} In 2005 President Hamid Karzai appointed her Governor of Bamyan Province, the first Afghan woman to become a governor of any province in the country. ¹ As governor she announced a focus on tourism as a source of income for one of Afghanistan's poorest provinces. ¹ Time magazine included her in its 2008 Heroes of the Environment list, partly for her work establishing the Band-e Amir National Park in Bamyan. ¹

In 2013 she won the Ramon Magsaysay Award, cited by the Foundation for her bold exercise of leadership in building a functioning provincial government against daunting odds, and in 2016 she received the N-Peace Award. ^{4 1} On 8 March 2018 she addressed the UN Security Council's open debate on Afghanistan, and in 2020 she was a member of the Peace Negotiation Team of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in the talks with the Taliban, one of only four women on the team. ^{1 3}

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