Maryam Durani (b. 1987). An Afghan activist and women's advocate. In 2012, she received the International Women of Courage Award.
Maryam Durani is the daughter of Haji Mohammad Eisa Durani, and she is a member of the Durrani tribe. She graduated from the Payam Noor and American University of Afghanistan. She earned a degree in Law and Political Science and business. Despite the area's extremely conservative view toward women, Durani served as a leader, role model, and advocate for women in Kandahar. First elected as a Kandahar Provincial Council Member in 2005 at the age of 21 and for a second term in 2009, Durani served as one of only four women on the Council and brought women's concerns and a woman's perspective to the activities and discussions of the Council.
As a young, emerging leader in southern Afghanistan, Durani's courage and dedication to the women of Afghanistan were embedded in the fabric of her daily life. Durani founded and served as the director of an association focused on empowerment of women, and she managed Merman Radio, a radio station in Kandahar City focused on women's issues. She was an outspoken advocate for the peace and rights of women and girls in Afghan society, as well as for basic civil rights for all Afghan citizens, and she was determined to change the culture and perception of women's roles in Afghanistan.
Durani understood and accepted the risks of being a visible woman in such powerful and meaningful roles and received strong support from her immediate and extended family who also faced these dangers. She was injured in an attempted assassination with a bomb that nearly took her life. The position she holds in the Kandahar Provincial Government was for a woman, extremely unusual, given the conservative values in southern Afghanistan, which continued to be influenced by Taliban views. Durani defied stereotypes and cultural norms and became a strong role model for women who wanted to change their circumstances, both for themselves and for their families. Durani used her position to foster justice, peace, human rights, and overall basic freedoms for Kandahari women.
In Afghanistan, Durani dedicated her life to educating those on the fringes of society and to pursuing equality for women and universal human rights. She believed that the greatest investment that could be made in Afghanistan's future was in its teachers, and that investing in their professional development would ensure that they have access to knowledge and information that would stimulate their own learning. This, in turn, will contribute to the critical task of providing a high-quality education to the youth of Afghanistan. Durani believed that to promote peace in Afghanistan, there must be expanded equal access to quality community-based education, as well as support programs that increase girls' and boys' attendance at school. Durani served in different positions, Durani was Kandahar people's representative in the provincial council, and director of a nonprofit women development organization registered in Afghanistan in 2004 seeking to improve women conditions in war-torn Kandahar province.
Durani became the founder and the owner of Merman Radio of Kandahar which was established in 2010 to address gender inequalities in Kandahar province and bring women's voices to the forefront. Merman Radio empowered Kandahar's youth, especially women and media professionals to explore sensitive issues of gender, human rights, good governance, rule of law, in addition to economic, and social issues.
In 2013, Durani founded the Kandahar women's advocacy network, Kandahar Women's Network, an advocacy platform which functioned for women's empowerment. Kandahar Women's Network had 25 women led organizations as its members.
In March 2012, Durani received the United States Secretary of State's International Women of Courage Award. In the same year, Time Magazine chose Durani as one of "The 100 Most Influential People in the World" According to Time Magazine, "As the owner and operator of a radio station (Merman Radio) that focuses on women's issues and as a member of the Kandahar provincial council, Durani stands up for the region's women with remarkable bravery."
In July 2013, Durani was selected as one of 30 young activists by the National Endowment for Democracy. In May 2014, Durani received the Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award in Middelburg, Netherlands. In November 2015, Durani received the International Peace Generation Award. And, in December 2015, Durani received the Simorgh International Peace Prize which was awarded on Human Rights Day (December 10, 2015) in the context of the Human Rights Week.
In 2021, with the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Maryam Durani was forced to go into hiding for fear of losing her life because of her activism. After an excruciating ordeal, Durani was able to escape Afghanistan and relocate to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where her new work centered on helping the growing community of Afghan refugees.
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Renowned Afghan women's rights activist Maryam Durani on relocating to Milwaukee, centering refugees
Many Afghans fled their homeland when the Taliban surged back into power after the U.S. withdrew from its 20-year war there. Maryam Durani was among them.
In 2012, she was one of TIMEmagazine’s 100 most influential people and received an International Women of Courage award for her work building up Afghan women and fighting oppression. She continued that work until last year when she and her family fled.
After spending several months at Wisconsin's Fort McCoy, Durani is now resettling in Milwaukee. She hasn’t been in Milwaukee for long, but already she’s staked out a special spot. “I like beach,” says Durani. “Because I saw the beach, I’m feeling peaceful.”
Durani says she and other Afghan refugees have appreciated visits to the lakefront, on the shoreline of Lake Michigan. “Because they have a more stress, and they all lose everything,” she says. “And they all lose past life. And now they are needed to find peace. And I think I'm saw beach. I'm feeling peaceful, and I other things I love in the Milwaukee, the people. They all have a friendly communication with the new people is coming, with the refugees. And I like these two things.”
While Durani knows some English, her native tongue is Dari. It’s the Afghan dialect of Farsi, spoken in Iran.
So we got help from local interpreter Kourosh Hassani, who’s an English as a second language teacher leader with the Department of Bilingual Multicultural Education at Milwaukee Public Schools. Durani answers in Dari, and Hassani translates to English.
“After that explosion, I experienced death and I wasn't afraid of it anymore. Because I said, ‘If I'm supposed to die, then let me leave behind a legacy, something behind for the next generation.'"
Life has been good in Milwaukee, Durani says. “Because I found new friends here. And I feel like the work that I was doing in my country, I can continue doing it here.”
Durani was born in Iran to Afghan refugees and moved back to Afghanistan at 18. She lived in Kandahar until she fled last year. Kandahar is about eight hours south of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capitol, and is much closer to the border with Pakistan. Durani says there were a lot of changes there from the time she arrived until she left.
“In the beginning, when we came [to Afghanistan], the security was very good,” she says. “There was no name, name or mention of the Taliban, they didn't even exist. One of the bad things I had is that women did not really work outside, there was only one principal that was a woman that was a principal of that school. And in the universities, women were not present, or the girls were not present.”
Durani saw these problems and realized that women themselves needed to get active and resolve them. She became a provincial council member in the Kandahar Council. She graduated from university.
Durani founded the Kandahar Women's Advocacy Network, made up of two dozen advocacy groups led by women. She started a women’s internet cafe, a woman's library, a school for higher learning, a fitness center and the first women’s radio station in the south of Afghanistan.
As for where she found the energy to do all these things, Durani says, “What really inspired me was the presence of the other young women who are besides me. And so, when I would see the girls and women come when I had done something, and they would laugh, and they'd be very happy about it, that would encourage me to go ahead and do another, take another step or another move.”
When TIME magazine wrote about Durani in 2012, it said Kandahar Province is often called the spiritual home of the Taliban. And it's a place where it pays to stay quiet. But that's not Maryam Durani’s way. How did she deal with the threats and the worries about being involved in these issues?
“The first two years was very peaceful, was very good. And so, I thought it's better that I worked for the women. It was after the second or third year that the problem started coming up. But the good thing, the good thing I had was my family and they were beside me, and they would support me to this," she says.
The first explosion at her workplace really gave her the courage to continue, Durani says. “After that explosion, I experienced death and I wasn't afraid of it anymore. Because I said, ‘If I'm supposed to die, then let me leave behind a legacy, something behind for the next generation.'"
She says she's experienced a lot of bad things in her life and during these travels as a refugee. “And so I said, 'If I can bring about some change so that the next generation does not experience the same thing after me, why wouldn't I? Why shouldn't I do something about it?'”
Durani survived two assassination attempts. “Two times I was a subject of, you know, personal detonations against me, where they would blow themselves up.” She says one of her colleagues was assassinated. “We were campaigning on a work that we were working on together. And I was forced to go live six months hidden in Kabul. Besides that, there was a lot of calls made, there's a lot of threats made by Taliban against me.”
Durani admits that not everybody has the sort of selflessness and courage to help the next generation. She says her selflessness goes back to her childhood.
“From my mom and dad, I always learned to help others. My mom would always try to help other refugees who would come to Iran to try to help them out. And my parents would do that. So, I saw that in them. And as a child, I would read a lot of books. And in the books, I would read about a lot of people who did sacrifices for their society. And for that reason, I wanted to be somebody who's able to put a smile and put happiness as a gift to others.”
“It's very hard for me to express ‘What do you miss from home?’ because your country makes your identity. I am like a person that I've lost my identity."
Durani doesn’t feel like she is at risk by being in the United States and speaking to the media. “No, not right now because right now I'm here. I feel safe, but if I decide to go back, then yes.”
Durani calls her journey to the U.S. scary and dreadful. When Kabul fell, she had to hide in a house for two to three weeks. Even the children couldn’t go outside. Her family tried to get to the airport three or four times during that period, and each time they were afraid of being stopped by the Taliban. Every time they were turned away, they lost hope. They finally made it! But, Durani says that comes with the sorrow of leaving everything behind.
“For you to be to have to leave everything that you have, you've had to let it go and to go on a path that you don't know what the end of it will be. And when you start on this path of journey, you see, there's lots of scary things until you reach safety.”
Obviously, there were hardships in Afghanistan, but Durani says she really misses her work, her friends, her colleagues and employees. “It's very hard for me to express ‘What do you miss from home?’ because your country makes your identity. I am like a person that I've lost my identity,” she describes.
In fact, Durani has a metaphor for that loss of identity. “Immigrants from Afghanistan who have come here, they're almost like newborn babies right now. Because right now, they don't have anyone. They don't know anything. And they can't speak. And this newborn needs to, little by little, to grow and develop — like learning a new language, learning how to communicate and with one another with others, and learning about some of the goods and the bads of the society.”
In the U.S., women have the rights to work, to go to school, to be in the government. Durani says she’s been able to ease up on some of the worries she had in Afghanistan. “I can't say like everything that I was actually fighting for over there they have it over here right now. Not everything, but a great amount of the things that I was fighting for is already available here.”
Durani says the new environment, with its new rights, gives her an opportunity to become a better person. “Somebody to have a positive impact on themselves and their surrounding environment." She wants to be a role model for the children and encourage them to learn and grow.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban is trying many efforts to restrict women, like banning long distance road trips for women who are by themselves, requiring hijabs and chaperons to ride taxis, telling female workers to stay home, restricting secondary schools to only boys and male teachers.
Durani is most concerned with the closing of schools. “Because all of my advocacy in the past was always that women should be able to be educated because I believe in this. It’s a society that is advanced and has independence, for the society that its women are illiterate. It is like a society that has no spirit and no brain, and anybody can use and abuse that society.”
Now, Durani says she can help Afghan refugees push through the culture shock and move forward. “For example, I've seen some people from the villages or the outskirts of the cities in Afghanistan, and they have come to the city. That was a very closed society when they were, for example in those villages. And so, girls always had this picture in their mind that they can't do anything except for marry and bear children. I want to teach them that now that you're over here, you have this opportunity. So, I want to plant the seed and give them the idea that hey, now I can do something here. So let me do it.”
Durani says people can help Afghans right now in Milwaukee and around the country. "I see various groups, organizations that are supporting. They can offer their support or their help or donations to those organizations that are helping the refugees. For example, two women that have been working with me they're helping me to understand the American society and how to function in it."
She says she was very happy that she met these women. “So, it's important for individuals, like that I had the opportunity to meet, for them to meet the individuals and persons that can guide them and help them in the new society.”
Durani says it’s also important to help young Afghans get to college. She says they’ll need financial support or assistance, or help with scholarships or grants.
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Maryam Durani: (Arabic: مَریَم دورانی), is an Afghan activist. Daughter of Haji Mohammad Eisa Durani, Maryam Durani was born in 1987. Hailing from the Muhammadzai tribe, Maryam is a graduate of the business department of American University of Afghanistan and currently she is a third class student of Law and Political Science at Noor University. Maryam Durani was also Kandahar people’s representative in the provincial council. She has served in different positions such as director of Khadijatul Kubra women's association for culture, owner of Merman Radio (special women radio) and as founder of the Kandahar woman advocacy network. She received the World Ten Brave Women’s award on March 8, 2012 as well as a World 100 Influential Figure’s award on April 20, 2012. She has also received the Brave Woman award from the State of Pennsylvania, the Women Rights Protector’s award from Washington and an Iraq and Afghanistan Female Peace Activist’s appreciation letter from Turkey. She is a broadcaster and the manager of the Merman Radio of Kandahar. On April 6, 2013, she founded the Women's Network (Advocacy) in Kandahar. Maryam also established the Malalai Maiwandi Internet cafe a free women's internet cafe to connect more women to the world in a safe and comfortable space. she opened Malali Maiwandi internet cafe on September 25, 2013 which is the first of its kind in the Afghanistan. There Afghan women could use the cafe for getting information about current affairs and obtain educational material, which is the main reason why she established the women's cafe. In 2012, she was chosen by Time Magazine as "The 100 Most Influential People in the World". According to Time, "As the owner and operator of a radio station (Merman Radio) that focuses on women's issues and as a member of the Kandahar provincial council, Durani stands up for the region's women with remarkable bravery." On March 8, 2012, she became a recipient of the prestigious United States Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award.
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