Sahar Fetrat

Sahar Fetrat is a Researcher with the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. Sahar is a feminist activist born in Afghanistan, lived in Iran and Pakistan as a young refugee during the first Taliban regime. She grew up in Kabul as her family returned to Afghanistan in late 2006 when she was 10. Sahar encountered feminist activism in her teenage years in Kabul and decided to incorporate her feminist views into storytelling through documentary filmmaking and writing. In 2013, Sahar’s documentary on street harassment, “Do Not Trust My Silence,” won the first prize in Universo-Corto Elba Film Festival. Sahar has previously worked with the education unit of UNESCO in Afghanistan, advocating for literacy education for women around the country. She has gained first-hand experience working with children who have been victims and survivors of war through volunteering with the Solace for the Children initiative. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the American University of Afghanistan (2018) and a Master’s degree in Critical Gender Studies from Central European University (2020). She is currently completing her second Master’s degree in Conflict, Security, and Development at the War Studies department of King’s College London. Sahar’s research interests include feminist decolonial theory and praxis, affect theory, gender and conflict, women and/in war, and masculinities.