Latifa Nabizada - Afghanistan’s First Woman of the Skies
Col Latifa Nabizada, the first female pilot in the Afghan air force, has battled prejudice, the Taliban and personal tragedy - but her ambitions for her young daughter soar even higher.
My sister and I always talked about the stars and the universe.
We talked about how aeroplanes were made and what it would be like to fly one - how it would feel to be a pilot. There were water butts near where we lived and I used to climb on top and imagine I was flying a helicopter.
After we had finished school, Laliuma and I told our parents we wanted to be professional pilots. They were quite shocked. At the time, not many women in Afghanistan could work and there we were, thinking of becoming pilots. But we managed to convince them. My father’s support was huge and it helped us a lot.
Latifa and Laliuma were repeatedly denied admission to the Afghan military school on medical grounds, but they eventually joined in 1989 after being certified fit by a civilian doctor. No women’s uniforms existed, so they made their own.
We were the first two women pilots in Afghan air force history.
The other students threw stones at us. We used to leave the classroom in protest - then our teachers would come out and apologise and we would go back in. We were all so young and such things happened at that time. Considering the social conditions, people were quite positive about it. […]