In 1953 she graduated from Kabul Women's College, and received a degree in business in the United States in 1958. In 1959, she and
Kubra Noorzai became one of the first women to appear in public in Afghanistan without a veil after Queen
Humaira Begum had removed hers, supporting the call by the Prime minister
Mohammed Daoud Khan for women to voluntary remove their
veil. In 1964 King
Mohammed Zahir Shah appointed her to an advisory committee that reviewed the draft
1964 constitution, which granted women the right to vote and stand for election. In
1965 she was elected to represent
Kandahar in the
House of the People of Parliament, and became a leading advocate of women's rights. She was the only one of the four women elected in 1965 to run for re-election in
1969, but lost her seat. In 1987 she became President of the
Afghan Women's Council. She was one of two women in the cabinet alongside
Saleha Farooq Etemadi, and one of the first women in the Afghan government. Esmati-Wardak died on 22 August 2016, at the age of 85–86. ==References==