Latifa Sharifi embraced her younger sister Atefa Tuesday again and again at DFW International Airport in a long-awaited reunion after a harrowing escape from...
Latifa Sharifi embraced her younger sister Atefa Tuesday again and again at DFW International Airport in aShe’s a human rights lawyer, defending abused women and girls in her native Afghanistan, a country of 40 million now under Taliban rule. Sharifi had already received death threats for her work when her homeland fell in August 2021 to the Taliban and its rigid fundamentalism. Fear quickly spread that women and girls would face draconian repression of their aspirations for education and work.
Then, as Latifa Sharifi stood with a bouquet of red and yellow roses, she told a small group of journalists, in English and Dari, that she was also sad for those Afghan women and girls left behind: “I want this freedom and this safety for all the Afghan women that they will also be like me, safe.” Praise flowed from Latifa Sharifi for all who helped her escape Afghanistan as Taliban forces seized hold of life there again.
Latifa Sharifi’s family members wanted to publicize her story a year ago to raise her profile and secure her release, despite the danger of being thrown in jail.