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Outlook: The girl who heckled the President

Magazines & Reviews

Zarifa Ghafari

28/09/2022 GMT

The girl who heckled the President

BBC World Service - Outlook, The girl who heckled the President

At 11 Zarifa heckled Hamid Karzai, by 24 she was Afghanistan's youngest female Mayor

At 11 Zarifa Ghafari heckled then-president Hamid Karzai; by 24 she was Afghanistan's youngest female Mayor

When Zarifa Ghafari was eleven years old she heckled Afghanistan's then-president, Hamid Karzai, because he cancelled a visit to her school. By the time she was twenty four she had become the country's youngest-ever female Mayor. But her high profile made her a target. Three assassination attempts were made on her life and her father was killed by gunmen. Today, she's a prominent activist still working on women's rights in Afghanistan from her new home in Germany. She's written a book called Zarifa: A Woman's Battle In A Man's World. 

Susana Baca is one of Peru's best-loved singers, but it wasn't until her fifties that her career took off. Originally a teacher, her musical success started when her extraordinary talent for singing was discovered by David Byrne, lead singer of the American band Talking Heads. Since then, she's been taking her style of Afro-Peruvian music around the world and has won three Latin Grammy awards. She spoke to Outlook's Jane Chambers in an interview first broadcast in April 2017.

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com

Presenter: Andrea Kennedy
Producer: May Cameron

(Photo: Zarifa Ghafari Credit: Marcel Mettelsiefen)

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