Nila Ibrahimi of Afghanistan won the Children’s Peace Prize

When Nila Ibrahimi started a website telling the stories of Afghan girls, the goal wasn’t just to give them a voice.

The 17-year-old Afghan refugee is also determined to remind her Gen Z friends in her adopted country, Canada, that they are very similar — they even listen to Taylor Swift like other teenage girls on the internet. worldwide.

“I wanted to make them as real as possible so that other people, especially young people, especially Gen Z, could put themselves in their shoes,” she told the BBC.

Nila spoke to the BBC earlier this week, before accepting the International Children’s Peace Prize that the education campaigner previously won Malala Yousafzai and climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Perhaps Nila’s job is not easy. The plight of Afghan women and girls can make a world of difference to young people living in Canada, where Nila has found a home after fleeing her homeland when it was occupied by the Taliban for three years. last year.

At that time, the Taliban had banned teenage girls from going to school, banned women from traveling long distances without a male chaperone, and now ordered them to keep their voices down in public – leaving half The population must be silent.

The Taliban have previously defended the rulings to the BBC by saying they were in accordance with religious texts.

“Differences [between Afghanistan and Canada] It’s very large so it’s hard for them to feel connected,” Nila admitted.

That’s why she helped found HerStory – where she and others help share the stories of Afghan women and girls in their own words, both at home and abroad.

“A lot of times we get so lost in our differences that we don’t see the similarities, and that’s our goal to show that to the world.”

Nila Ibrahim was chosen from 165 nominees as the 20th winner of this prestigious award.

This award not only recognizes her efforts on HerStory but also recognizes her passion for standing up for women’s rights in Afghanistan.

Nila’s first stance on women’s rights came in March 2021, when she, along with other young Afghan girls, shared a video of herself singing online.

It was a small but powerful protest against an edict of the The then director of education in the Afghan capital Kabul, who tried to ban girls over 12 years old from singing in public. The attempted command was never executed.

“That was when I really understood the importance of performing, the importance of speaking up and talking about these issues,” explains Nila, who is part of a group called Sound of Afghanistan.

But less than six months later, everything would change – and at age 14, she had to flee with her family when the Taliban arrived.

The family – from Afghanistan’s Hazara minority – made the difficult journey to Pakistan, where they spent a year before being granted asylum in Canada.

After 12 months without an education, she said, it was a “breath of fresh air.”

Here, Nila was reunited with her friends in the singing group.

She was also invited to speak at events, about her experiences in Afghanistan, allowing her to advocate for all the girls left behind.

People were surprised at her eloquence, she said. But Nila knows there are millions of women and girls in Afghanistan with similar abilities – even though she has less access to opportunities.

“So I thought if my potential can surprise these people and they don’t know how educated girls from Afghanistan can be, what if they can reach got that information?”

HerStory – the website that grew out of this thinking – started in 2023. It features interviews and first-person accounts from both refugees and women in Afghanistan.

The idea was to create a safe space where a group of people who “grew up with stories about the early days of the Taliban and how terrible life was for women back then” shared their stories – and ” their shock and anger” at finding themselves in an increasingly similar situation.

Anger is a feeling that Nila tries to separate from her work.

“When you see Afghanistan go back 20 years, of course it scares you,” she said.

“It’s a shared feeling. It’s a common experience for girls everywhere.”

The prize, she said, is an opportunity for Afghan girls to once again remind the world of the limitations they face every day – a reminder “not to forget the girls of Afghanistan”.

Marc Dullaert, founder of the KidsRights Foundation, which runs the award, pointed out that a “shocking” number of young women are currently excluded from education.

He added: “Nila’s inspiring work to give them a voice that is heard around the world makes her a truly worthy winner of this year’s 20th International Peace Prize ”.

It’s also a reminder that her generation – however young – can make a difference, Nila hopes.

“I think a lot of times when we talk about different issues and causes, we talk about it with a very adult approach of oh, this is very serious,” she said.

“The world is a very scary place, but there’s a more Gen Z-like approach… and we can take baby steps and… do whatever we can.”