Fawzia Koofi is an Afghan politician and human rights advocate.  She holds a Master’s degree in International Relations and Human Rights from the Geneva School of Diplomacy. She served as Vice President of the National Assembly of Afghanistan and she was also a member of the peace negotiation team in Doha. When the Taliban took over her country in 1995, she focused on women’s rights organizations and worked closely with vulnerable groups, including UNICEF. Koofi was elected in 2005 to the first democratically-elected parliament in 33 years and she was also the first woman Deputy Speaker of Parliament in the history of Afghanistan. She chaired Parliament’s standing committee on women and human rights and she was a member and President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s Committee on Human Rights from 2016-2019. Ms. Koofi is the leader of a newly-established political party in Afghanistan, Movement for Change.  In 2021, the Taliban put her under house arrest as soon as they captured Kabul, but she eventually managed to flee the country.  Since then, she has traveled across the world to meet world leaders, human rights organizations, and civil society activists to keep the focus on Afghanistan, especially the repression of women and girls. She was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.