Sarābi was born in
Sarāb,
Ghazni Province and spent her youth traveling around the country with her father. She was the only daughter of five children so she learned to stand up for her rights. During the first
Taliban rule in
Afghanistan, Dr. Sarabi and her children fled to
Peshawar,
Pakistan, but returned frequently in secret. Her husband stayed behind in Kabul to care for his family. She was also the Vice President of
Humanitarian Assistance for the Women and Children of Afghanistan. She served as Afghanistan's
Minister of Women's Affairs as well as
Minister of Culture and Education. In 2005, she was appointed
Governor of
Bamyan Province by
President Hamid Karzai, which made her the first Afghan woman to become a governor of any province in the country. As governor, Sarabi has announced one of her focuses will be on
tourism as a source of income. The province has historically been a source of
Buddhist culture and was the location of the
Buddhas of Bamiyan, the two ancient statues destroyed by the Taliban before the
U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. However, Bamiyan remains one of the poorest and most under-developed provinces of Afghanistan, with a litany of problems including high rates of
illiteracy and
poverty. In 2008
Time magazine included her in its list of
Heroes of the Environment, partly for her work in establishing the
Band-e Amir National Park of Afghanistan in Bamiyan. In 2013, she won the
Ramon Magsaysay Award, and she was succeeded by governor by
Ghulam Ali Wahdat. She also received the
N-Peace Award in 2016 for her tireless work to bring peace to Afghanistan and its focus on gender equality and women's empowerment. In 2020, Habiba Sarabi was a member of the
Peace Negotiation Team of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. On 8 March 2018,
International Women's Day, she delivered a statement to the UN Security Council during the Open Debate on the
United Nations Mission in Afghanistan. In 2022 she was at a conference called "Lessons from the Afghanistan Peace Process" at the
United States Institute of Peace. The conference asked why there had been no internal talks in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021. == See also ==