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Afghan activist Laila Haidari is lovingly called the “mother of a thousand children.” As the founder of Mother Camp, the only private drug rehabilitation center in Kabul, Haidari has helped thousands of addicts recover and get back on their feet.
The addicts she works with are often viewed as criminals by the rest of society. Haidari has been accused of being a criminal herself due to her association with the people she serves.
In addition to her work with Mother Camp, Haidari also owns the Taj Begum Café. The café serves as a rare space in Kabul where unmarried men and women openly sit and have coffee together.
Conservative media outlets in Kabul have condemned the café for promoting unIslamic values, some going as far as to compare the establishment to a brothel.
In the face of opposition, Haidari has remained determined to create needed change in her community. Now, she is waging war against the United State’s ongoing peace talks with the Taliban.
Haidari warns that if the U.S. withdrawals from Afghanistan and the Taliban were to take back control of the country, spaces like her café would not only be more openly criticized but forced to shut down altogether.
“We are face to face with an ideology, not a group of people,” Haidari told the New York Times in an interview. “They believe that women are defined as the second gender and you can’t change that ideology, so I have no hope for Taliban talks.”
Few Afghan women have been as willing as Haidari to challenge the nation’s patriarchal society.
Those who do tend to act quietly and come from liberal, Western-educated families. Haidari does not fit this profile. She was born into a very conservative and religious family.
When she was twelve years old, Haidari was married off to a mullah twenty years older than her and had three children with him.
At the time, Haidari did not realize child marriage was an unjust act.
Now divorced, she is determined to protect future generations from oppressive lifestyles enforced by Taliban rule.
Haidari refuses to sit back and watch other young women be confined to their homes and treated as second-class citizens by men.
Once an aspiring filmmaker, Haidari was compelled to open Mother Camp after watching her brother Hakim fall into a heroin addiction.
Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium and one of the worst victims of the failed “war on drugs” efforts.
Haidari made a promise to God that if she could save her own brother, she would open a treatment center and help other male addicts using the Narcotics Anonymous 12-step program.
Eight years later, Haidari has rescued thousands of addicts from the homeless community that congregates under Kabul’s Pul-e-Sokhta bridge.
All addicts living at the center must wear purple uniforms and shave their heads to discourage them from trying to walk out and leave the facility.
Anyone who completes the program and stays clean is eligible to work in Haidari’s café or in one of the two shoe factories she finances.
Haidari and her team make an effort to keep tabs on all residents after they leave.
If they relapse and return to the facility, Haidari will offer them some tough love by shaving off their eyebrows. She recently opened a second rehabilitation center to treat addicted women.
Many people are inspired by Haidari’s work and story. A documentary about her life called “Laila at the Bridge” recently premiered at film festivals in Europe and North America.
Not only is Haidari an incredible example of perseverance and resilience for Afghan women, but a model changemaker for people all across the world.
