Dr. Halima Kazem حلیمه کاظم

Feminist Scholar, Speaker, & Journalist - Associate Director @Stanford Program in Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Afghanistan Oral Historian @Hooverinst

[Dr. Halima Kazem حلیمه کاظم @HalimaKazem]

For 4 years, I've been traveling the world recording oral histories from Afghans and Americans who lived through the war in Afghanistan. 450 hours of interviews. 15+ countries. Full life histories—not just what people did, but who they were before and after.
On April 9th, @LTGHRMcMaster and I are launching the HART Afghanistan Oral History Archive at the @hooverinstitution. It's the largest collection of Afghan oral histories from the war, preserving voices and perspectives before they're lost.

Join us for the launch. Register in person or Zoom: https://t.co/OYBQ6hRshD

#Afghanistan #OralHistory #HART #HooverInstitution #HistoricalArchives @fforo

[Zahra Joya @ZahraJoya]

If you believe in equality, justice, and standing up for women’s rights, join us in making a real difference. Together, we can create positive change and amplify the voices of women everywhere.

[𝐊𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐝 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐠🇦🇫 @Kali_Vardag]

History often remembers the kings, but rarely the mothers & matriarchs who shaped them & the nation's trajectory. Re-centering the powerful women of Afghanistan’s past through oral history is vital work to counter modern erasure. Massive congratulations to @HalimaKazem on this labor of love!

[Dr. Halima Kazem حلیمه کاظم @HalimaKazem]

In my upcoming book “A Feminist History of Afghanistan: Resisting the Erasure of Women” by Bloomsbury publishing, I write about the life of Ulya Hazrat, King Amanullah’s mother and my paternal grandmother’s aunt (ama). I uncover stories about her through a series of oral history interviews with the late Bebe India, her granddaughter, before she passed away. Ulya Hazrat is in this photo, sitting in the middle with a young Amanullah standing next to her. My book is in the last editing stages 🙏🙏. Labor of love

[Dr. Halima Kazem حلیمه کاظم @HalimaKazem]

In my upcoming book “A Feminist History of Afghanistan: Resisting the Erasure of Women” by Bloomsbury publishing, I write about the life of Ulya Hazrat, King Amanullah’s mother and my paternal grandmother’s aunt (ama). I uncover stories about her through a series of oral history interviews with the late Bebe India, her granddaughter, before she passed away. Ulya Hazrat is in this photo, sitting in the middle with a young Amanullah standing next to her. My book is in the last editing stages 🙏🙏. Labor of love

[Freedom House @freedomhouse]

Freedom House convened a bipartisan briefing today in the House of Representatives on how the misuse of commercial spyware technologies threatens global freedom and national security in the United States and around the world. As AI tools like Anthropic’s Claude Mythos and its Chinese competitors make it easier to exploit security vulnerabilities, the threat posed by cyber intrusion tools becomes all the more dangerous.

[DROPS @drops_afg]

Since 2014, the Afghanistan Women and Public Policy Journal has been the only peer-reviewed publication in Afghanistan authored entirely by women. Dismantling the stereotype that women only write about "women's issues" by producing rigorous analysis on diverse topics from regional security and economy to peace processes, elections and more.

Check out the journals here: https://t.co/WazgS3HLBL

#DROPS #AfghanWomen #Research #Policy

[Dr. Halima Kazem حلیمه کاظم @HalimaKazem]

@AsilaA Congratulations, Asila jan qand. So happy for you! You have so many rich experiences to share

[Dr. Halima Kazem حلیمه کاظم @HalimaKazem]

This Bay Area cemetery holds my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, so much of my family. A whole generation of us putting down roots in California soil, our names in Dari on the granite. Watching our elders pass, I find myself hoping there will be a place for me here too, when the time comes.

[Jahanzib Wesa @jahanzibwesa]

Good news for Afghan female students!

Applications are now open for the 2026, 2027 AISE Afghanistan Academic Program (Grades 7–10, online). Deadline: July 17, 2026
Email: [email protected]

Please share this notice to reach Afghan girls denied from their education.

[Dr. Halima Kazem حلیمه کاظم @HalimaKazem]

@alibomaye beautiful tribute, may she rest in peace. so sorry for your loss.

[that poonam ka chaand @sabsezyadaa]

The way I want to hug his mom… what a wonderful son she raised.

[Dr. Halima Kazem حلیمه کاظم @HalimaKazem]

My girl is back from her first year of college and it’s time to adventure together! Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco. Stunning and peaceful spot to grab matcha and catch up. 🧿❤️

[Dr. Halima Kazem حلیمه کاظم @HalimaKazem]

Italian news magazine, Internazionale, just published a beautiful profile of Farahnaz jan Forotan, my dear friend and colleague. It's in Italian, so I want to share her story here in English. Many of you follow Farahnaz but may not know how she got here, and those who don't know her yet should.
Born in 1992, into war, she was still a girl when she started on Kabul television. She taught herself the craft in a newsroom full of men who doubted her, and became one of the first Afghan women to cover the fighting in the south and put the country's powerful men on the record. The hardest resistance was at home: an uncle used to black out the TV whenever she appeared. She did not argue with him. She changed him. That same uncle later sent his own daughter abroad to study.
In November 2020 the Taliban put her name on a blacklist and she had to flee. The years that followed were brutal. Then she built Kaaj, an Afghan newsroom reported from inside the country by young women who lost their schools after 2021 and refused to lose their voices too.
I met Farahnaz in 2024, when I interviewed her for the Hoover Afghanistan Oral History Archive. What struck me first was her honesty, candid and unguarded even when the truth cost her. We came up worlds apart, she on Afghan television in Kabul, I in Afghan community radio in the Bay Area, but we are both journalists at heart, and I saw a lot of my younger self in her. Now I serve as chair of Kaaj's advisory board, and we work side by side, breaking stories out of Afghanistan together. She gave her youth to this work and does not regret it. She wants to go to university, keep learning, and one day return to Afghanistan. https://t.co/ovrfI9M6b1

[Dr. Halima Kazem حلیمه کاظم @HalimaKazem]

https://t.co/kZV4BVQzWF

[Dr. Halima Kazem حلیمه کاظم @HalimaKazem]

It was time 5 years ago.

[Zalmay Khalilzad @realZalmayMK]

It is time for the Taliban leader to allow the return of girls and young women to public high schools and universities. #Afghanistan
https://t.co/hR6DLMph2F

[Lina Rozbih @LinaRozbih]

Did you raise the health crisis affecting women and girls with the Taliban during your engagements?

[Dr. Halima Kazem حلیمه کاظم @HalimaKazem]

@LinaRozbih I completely agree with you, Lina jan. Women are made invisible, even by the most visible men, in the name of honor.

[Zan TV @ZANTV]

The Independent Coalition of Afghanistan Women’s Protest Movements says Kankor without the participation of girls has no “academic legitimacy” and is a sign of the systematic exclusion of women and girls from education and Afghanistan’s future.

The coalition said that announcing the results of a Kankor exam in which no girl was allowed to participate is not an educational achievement, but “a clear sign of gender apartheid”.

Read More:
https://t.co/Y4yq32vfdZ

[Dr. Halima Kazem حلیمه کاظم @HalimaKazem]

Look what just arrived: An early copy of City of Widows from the publisher, now sitting in my favorite reading corner. @NadiaHashimi, I already know it will wreck me in a profound way. Afghan women, Kabul, the years after the fall: the terrain we both live in, told as only you can.

[UN Special Procedures @UN_SPExperts]

#Pakistan: UN experts condemn life sentence against Baloch #humanrights defender Dr. Mahrang Baloch as grave injustice. “These convictions risk silencing independent voices in #Balochistan and further shrinking civic space.”

https://t.co/0F2GhgyJDY