The Documentary
Mahbouba Seraj had what every other Afghan wanted. A US passport and protected passage through the frenzied masses that had descended on Kabul International Airport in late August 2021, desperate to flee Afghanistan and the brutal Taliban regime that had just seized power, following the US withdrawal.
But this 73 year old Afghan women’s rights activist refused to leave. Who would protect her girls in the country’s last remaining shelter for abused women? Who would fight for the rights of women who had been promised a future for 20 years only to be abandoned by the West?
This is the story of Mahbouba Seraj. A Pashtun with royal lineage named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2021. She believes her responsibility is to help the women of Afghanistan now forced to live with systemic oppression in what is widely considered the most serious women’s rights crisis in the world today.
Director Anna Coren has been reporting from Afghanistan for the past decade. She returned to document Mahbouba’s courageous and prescient story, obtaining rare access and interviews that would no longer be possible.
Director's Statement
I met Mahbouba Seraj over skype in September 2021. I had just returned from Afghanistan after covering the US withdrawal for CNN. She was incensed at the US and international community for abandoning her country. Our conversation that day gave me goosebumps and I knew then that this 73-year-old women’s rights activist – who had a US passport but refused to evacuate – was a documentary in the making.
Over the next few months our weekly conversations continued. I asked her to take part in a talk I was giving at the Asia Society in Hong Kong. She joined by zoom and for an hour and a half she had Hong Kong’s elite hanging on her every word. One of the city’s richest businessmen told me, “I can’t unhear what I just heard” and wrote a generous cheque for her shelter.
Mahbouba and I have developed a close friendship and I am committed to telling her story. Her work is inspiring despite what may appear like insurmountable odds. Her purpose in this world is to raise the voices of Afghan women and girls, fight for their rights and bring about real change in Taliban controlled Afghanistan.
- - Anna Coren
Go to Mahbouba's Girls Foundation website to donate and help Afghan women
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