AFGHANISTAN

"Hadji Daoud, an authority in the region, who I met in Kabul, offered to take me on a tour of his fief. He was returning to his land to bring back news from the capital to the traditional chiefs who had chosen him to represent them at the Loya Jirga, the assembly that had just voted in the country’s new constitution. (…) I don’t know if the hadj made a single mention of the event that marked the procedures at this Loya Jirga.

Malalaï Joya, a delegate from a region close to Herat, had caused a stir at the platform. Before her microphone was cut, she made an appeal to the assembly: 'Why do we give the floor to the men who ruined our country and led it to civil war?' The old moudjahidin rose up against her, and today, Malalaï lives with death threats, and is protected by international security forces.

(…) On the day when Hadji Daoud met up with his peers and vassals, I didn’t see a single woman. My protector had forgotten the reason for my presence. Or else were his men unwilling for me to sketch their women? But the next day, I managed to make a portrait of a Pashtun from the area. Khaperey agreed to pose for a photo but only dressed in a chadri, and from behind."

Extract from Zoé Zoé, Femmes du mondes, 2007, Éditions Gallimard