Afghan Women’s Rights Advocate Shares Story of Growing Up as a Boy to Access Education

Afghan Women’s Rights Advocate Shares Story of Growing Up as a Boy to Access Education

Afghan women’s rights advocate and entrepreneur Nilofar Ayoubi has shared her remarkable story of growing up as a boy under Afghanistan’s traditional bacha posh practice, a custom in which girls are raised as boys to access opportunities often denied to females.

Born in Afghanistan, Ayoubi said her father cut her hair, gave her a male identity and raised her as his son so she could attend school, play sports and enjoy freedoms that many girls were unable to access.

“My father never agreed that we should wear those dresses. He shaved my hair and made me live as a boy so that I could have freedom,” she recalled.

As she approached puberty, Ayoubi said she was expected to abandon her male identity and return to living as a girl, a transition she described as emotionally challenging because it meant losing many of the freedoms she had enjoyed.

Despite the experience, she refused to let it define her future, going on to build a successful career as an entrepreneur while becoming a prominent advocate for the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan.

Following the return of the Taliban to power in 2021, Ayoubi’s activism forced her to flee the country.

She now lives in Poland, where she continues to campaign internationally for the rights, education and freedom of Afghan women and girls.

Afghan Women’s Rights Advocate Shares Story of Growing Up as a Boy to Access Education