‘I fight for women’s rights’: Afghan activist, now in Utah, still passionate about advocacy work

SALT LAKE CITY — As a foe of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, Laila Basim helped open a library for women in Kabul as a means of resistance and to assert their right to education.

It was dangerous work under the repressive Taliban government, which has largely stripped women of their rights, but Basim and the other women who helped felt compelled. “We wanted to raise their voices,” said Basim, who now lives with her husband Shakibra Rahimi in Salt Lake City.

Eventually, the Taliban closed the Zan Library, as it was called, and jailed some of the women who helped create it, though not Basim, she said. Basim did, however, face repercussions, including searches of her home and a beating at the hands of Taliban forces, she previously told KSL.com. She fled, reaching Utah with her husband nearly a year ago and has since taken a more behind-the-scenes role in fighting for Afghan women’s rights, via electronic communication with other advocates scattered around the globe.

Still, she’s just as passionate and hopes to ratchet up her involvement and make connections here in Utah so she can keep up her work. “We cannot give up. It’s our big dream to continue this struggle up to the day we have all our rights, and Afghan women and girls have their rights and we have a free society,” she said in Persian, with her husband translating.

In recognition of her advocacy for women through demonstrations in Afghanistan and the creation of Zan Library, Utah’s Community Health Centers is dedicating a Little Free Library to Basim, to be unveiled Saturday outside its clinic in the Rose Park area of Salt Lake City. The event starts at 1 p.m. at the Stephen D. Ratcliff Clinic at 1365 W. 1000 North, and the book-sharing box — decorated by local artists Manuel Alvarez and Xochitlacatl L. — is meant to serve area residents.

Basim, a patient of the nonprofit health care provider, “has risked her life advocating for educational access and book access,” wrote Lindsey Yanke, associate medical officer at Community Health Centers, which is based in West Valley City. “She was also a very vocal activist, organizing and participating in many protests attempting to regain women’s right to an education.”

Now, living in a Salt Lake City apartment with her husband and 4-month-old daughter Adokht, life is a lot different — safer — than it was in Afghanistan. Basim and Rahimi arrived in Salt Lake City on July 27 last year with other activists who were fleeing Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, Basim, an economist, had worked for the Afghan Economy Ministry and the United Nations, she said. After the Taliban took over in August 2021, she lost her job, turning her focus to women’s advocacy efforts. It was dangerous work and in light of their efforts, the Zan Library garnered attention from the British Broadcasting Corp. and El País, a Spanish newspaper, among other news outlets.

“After August 2021, living under (Taliban) rules, under their power, it was very bad. It was very dangerous for Afghan women,” Basim said. “It was like living in a grave. You didn’t have any rights.”

The Zan Library, aside from giving girls and women a place to read and borrow books, provided programming geared to women on women’s rights, politics, religion and more, according to El País. It was open for around seven months before the Taliban permanently shuttered it.

“I think Afghan women, they are so honorable. They are so brave,” said Rahimi, who works at a local Amazon warehouse, reflecting on the efforts of his wife and her colleagues. “Even I was afraid of the Taliban. It was a dangerous situation.”

Here in Salt Lake City, Basim said she has put her focus of late on raising their young daughter. They were drawn to Utah by the climate, similar to that in Afghanistan, and have made connections with the Afghan community in the state.

“But we worry about our families, our relatives and the women and the girls. They are in their homes and they can’t go outside,” she said, referencing the restrictions females face under Taliban rule. “Their homes are their jails.”

She speaks passionately about fighting gender apartheid, the systematic subjugation of women and their rights, even if she’s not in the thick of the fight — for now. Wherever she is, she said, “I fight for women’s rights.”