Malalai Kakar

The woman in the burqua is an Afghani martyr who put her life on the line for democracy and women’s rights. Her name was Malalai Kakar, and she was Kandahar’s first female police officer .

The mother of six was considered an iconic figure around the world for her efforts in protecting Afghani women from the terror of the Taliban. After following in the footsteps of her police officer father and brothers in 1982, Kakar eventually rose to the rank of captain and became the head of the department of crimes against women. She was a protector, and her burqa was what allowed her to do her job.

Photographer, Lana Šlezić met Kakar while she was living in Afghanistan and working on a photography book about the country’s women from 2004 to 2006. She remembers Kakar as “an incredible person” and “a light at the end of the tunnel.”

“She was my hope for Afghani woman in the future,” Šlezić says, “Malalai was the only woman they could turn to.”

Šlezić met with Kakar multiple times, both in her home and at the police station. “I remember one woman knocking on her door with her white burqa covered in blood because she had been beaten,” Šlezić says, recalling how local women were constantly in need of Kakar’s help. One day Šlezić even joined her on the job to confront a group of kidnappers who had taken a young girl. She remembers Kakar throwing a burqa over her uniform, jumping in a truck, and entering the kidnappers hideout with her pistol drawn, eventually rescuing the girl. “She was a hero,” Šlezić says.

In the Afghanistan of the Taliban, the woman named Malalai Kakar appeared like a guardian angel and for a brief  moment, shone bright until the Taliban fatally shot her in September of 2008.