The Afghan ambassador in Vienna, Manizha Bakhtari, has found herself in a bizarre situation since the Taliban took power: she represents a country whose former government has fled and whose new Taliban government is not internationally recognized. Despite financial and logistical isolation, Manizha Bakhtari defies the Taliban and continues her fight for the rights of Afghan women and girls as ambassador. Through her “Daughters” program, she enables Afghan schoolgirls to receive a secret education and, at the same time, organizes political resistance against the Taliban as ambassador. Under increasingly difficult conditions, she is becoming one of the most important international spokeswomen for the women of Afghanistan, true to her motto: “Peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of justice.”
