“A burqa is like a shroud for the living” Malalai Joya told me two years ago, “yet it has often saved my life”.

Joya is not her real name. It was adopted in homage to another visionary Afghan activist, Sarwar Joya, who after a lifetime fighting for democracy, freedom and women’s rights, was imprisoned and later murdered for his ideals. So far Malalai has survived five assassination attempts and expects more.

At 25 she was the youngest member of the Afghan Parliament and it is a miracle that she has reached the age of 30. This year she has to decide whether to stand for re-election. If the people of Farah province wish her to, she probably will, but the suspension that denied her a salary, office, staff or official protection has only increased her contempt for the ‘mask of democracy’ that she claims is worn by the Afghan Government. Her ‘crime’ was comparing Parliament to ‘a stable or a zoo’ in which some members behaved like animals. This ‘insult’ effectively prevented her from operating as an MP for most of the parliamentary term; something of an irony given that those who publicly threw bottles at her in the chamber and threatened her with murder and rape were never disciplined.

To some Afghans she is a heroine, like the legendary Malalai of Maiwand, who rallied faltering forces to drive out the British in 1880; to others she is well meaning but ‘too radical’. To powerful enemies she is a nemesis, a Fury who refuses to be silenced about unpunished rapes, murders, acts of corruption or intimidation. To me she is a brave and most remarkable woman.When we first met, at the house of a supporter in Kabul, Malalai was accompanied by just one female companion. Unfailingly gracious she thanked us for coming to Afghanistan to hear her story and offered us tea and refreshments.

Over the days that followed I marvelled at the stamina of this tiny woman who rarely seemed to be ‘off duty’, had little sleep and virtually no personal possessions. As we got to know each other she shared her life story with me; exiled at the age of four to a refugee camp, separated by conflict from her father who was injured by a landmine, she was hungry for education from an early age. By her late teens she was back in Afghanistan, operating covertly as a teacher of girls in Herat, under the harsh regime of the Taliban.“Another thing the burqa was good for was hiding books,” she once confided, “although I always found it difficult to walk in one and my father said he could always recognise me because I waddled like a penguin!”During my first visit I tried on Malalai’s burqa. It was too short, but I instantly felt the claustrophobia she had described, the disorienting lack of peripheral vision and clamminess that accompanied being swathed in a garment of man-made fibre in a hot country.

Since losing her official status and diplomatic passport Malalai has found it difficult to travel freely in Afghanistan and out of it. But supporters worldwide have embraced her and she has been honoured in many countries including Germany, Italy, Holland and the UK. Six female Nobel Peace Laureates have called for her to be reinstated.In spite of the dangers and difficulties Malalai continued to champion the cause of abused women and girls, men as well as women who had been intimidated by warlords and child rape victims.

One of the many she introduced me to was 12-year-old Bashira who she describes in her book.“I met Bashira and her father in Kabul in the presence of British journalist Glyn Strong, who later made a short documentary about the case. Bashira was so distraught after the rape that she tried to burn herself to death. Her hands still bore the scars when I met her. Her lovely young face was creased with worry as I held her against me and listened to her agonising story.
“Everyone was weeping as she and her father described the assault and the horrors that followed. Her father said that his daughter’s rapists tried to bribe him to drop the case, and when he refused, they had him beaten so badly he spent two weeks in hospital. But despite his complaints, the authorities and the courts turned a blind eye to his plea for justice. When Glyn asked Bashira why she came to see me, she said, while crying bitterly, ‘Because she speaks the truth.’ This poor girl and her father could find no one to stand up for them.”

Malalai Joya visited England for the first time last year to receive the Anna Politkovskaya Award for human rights activity. This year, at the end of July, she is due to return, to launch the book that tells the story of her life – ‘Raising My Voice’.It is as simple and uncompromising as Malalai herself; an engaging but unembellished account of a close family displaced by war, reunited then forced apart again by danger. The world knows Malalai Joya the activist, but she is also a wife, a daughter and a sister – a young woman whose life is so different from that of her British counterparts that it defies description.She travels alone, conscious of how much capital her enemies seek to make out of every journey she takes. She is uncompromising and has told British politicians to their faces that their troops are an occupying force that has become part of the problem, not the solution.“One country cannot donate freedom to another” she regularly tells journalists.

Recent American bombardment of her own (Farah) province resulted in countless civilian casualties, something she finds difficult to speak of. Instead she urges President Obama to focus on an exit strategy rather than a troop surge: “Escalation will only create more terrorists and more hatred of the United States, while bringing only more misery and devastation to my country.” Joya says “At one time America was spending $100m a day in Afghanistan for the war; this amount will have increased, but figures have not yet been published. Total international aid for reconstruction comes to only $7m a day, the vast majority of which falls into corrupt hands, never reaching those who need it.

“Afghanistan needs real humanitarian aid and help with reconstruction. The Congressional Budget Office says that the United States will spend 2.4 trillion dollars over the next 10 years on the ‘war on terror’. If, instead, they spent this money properly and honestly, not only could Iraq and Afghanistan be made into heaven on earth but, also, world poverty could be eliminated.” To Joya, the fact that they do not is simply further evidence that US/NATO involvement is driven by regional, economic and strategic interests rather than altruistic concern for the Afghan people. “As it stands, huge sums of taxpayers’ money are being poured into a counterproductive war, while urgently needed social spending at home is neglected. I have seen the poor and the homeless on the streets of wealthy Western cities. The homeless are humans too – I do not understand how their governments can ignore their suffering. The money needed to alleviate their pain never reaches them, just like the money that has poured into Afghanistan has never reached the poor who so desperately need it.”

Malalai and I were together in 2007 when the deaths of two British troops were announced. She didn’t want them in her country but she expressed sorrow for their families. “Loss of loved ones is something we understand” she told me.

*When I started writing this piece 167 British troops had lost their lives in Afghanistan. Before I finished it a 168th had been added – the beloved son a friend who was serving with 2 RIFLES in Helmand. Even more have died since.

*RAISING MY VOICE by Malalai Joya is published by Rider on 16 July 2009, priced £11.99.

MALALAI JOYA www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3668254/Malalai-Joya-courage-under-fire.html http://www.malalajoya.com/

GLYN STRONG http://www.glynstrong.co.uk/

BASHIRA’S STORY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABPSao6S_7A