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Nila Ibrahimi beat 165 other nominees to be named winner of this year's International Children's Peace Prize
When Nila Ibrahimi decided to create a website telling the stories of young Afghan girls, it wasn't just to give them a voice.
The 17-year-old Afghan refugee was also determined to remind her fellow Gen Zers in her adopted country of Canada that they were similar: They even listened to Taylor Swift, just like other teenage girls around the world.
“I want to make them as real as possible so that other people, especially young people, especially Generation Z, can put themselves in their shoes,” she told the BBC.
Nila spoke to the BBC earlier this week, before receiving the International Children's Peace Prize, previously won by education campaigner Malala Yousafzai and climate campaigner Greta Thunberg.
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The rules that Afghan women live under in Afghanistan have been described as “gender apartheid” by the United Nations.
Nila's task may not be an easy one. The plight of Afghanistan's women and girls may seem a world apart to young people living in Canada, where Nila found a home after fleeing her home country when the Taliban took power three years ago.
At that time, the Taliban banned education for teenage girls, banned women from traveling long distances without a male chaperone, and now ordered them to lower their voices in public, effectively silencing half the population.
The Taliban have already defended these decisions to the BBC, saying they aligned with religious texts.
“The differences (between Afghanistan and Canada) are vast, so it's difficult for them to feel connected,” Nila admits.
That's why she helped create HerStory, a place where she and others help share the stories of Afghan women and girls in their own words, both inside and outside the country.
“So many times we get lost in the differences that we don’t see the similarities and that’s our goal, to show the world.”
Nila Ibrahim was chosen from 165 nominees as the 20th winner of this prestigious award.
The award recognizes not only the work done on HerStory, but also her passion for defending women's rights in Afghanistan.
Nila's first stand for women's rights came in March 2021, when she joined other young Afghan girls in sharing a video of herself singing online.
It was a small but powerful protest against a decree by the then education director in the Afghan capital, Kabul, which attempted to ban girls over 12 from singing in public. The attempted order was never executed.
“That’s when I really understood the importance of performing on stage, the importance of speaking out and talking about these issues,” says Nila, who was part of a band called Sound of Afghanistan.
But less than six months later, everything would change and, aged 14, she had to flee with her family when the Taliban arrived.
The family, part of Afghanistan's Hazara minority, made the difficult journey to Pakistan, where they spent a year before being granted asylum in Canada.
It was, after 12 months without education, a “breath of fresh air”, she says.
There, Nila found her friends from the singing group.
She has also been invited to speak at events about her experiences in Afghanistan, allowing her to advocate for all girls left behind.
People, she said, were surprised at how eloquent she was. But Nila knew there were millions of women and girls in Afghanistan who were just as capable, even if they had less access to the opportunities available to them.
“So I thought what if my potential could surprise these people and they don’t know how educated Afghan girls can be, what if this information was accessible to them?”
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Afghan women have faced increasing restrictions since the Taliban's return to power, particularly regarding their ability to speak in public.
HerStory – the website born from this reflection – was launched in 2023. It features interviews and testimonies from refugees and women in Afghanistan.
The idea is to create a safe space where a group of people who “grew up with stories of the early period of the Taliban and how horrible women's lives were back then” share their stories – and their “shock and their anger. find themselves in an increasingly similar situation.
Anger is a feeling that Nila tries to keep separate from her work.
“When you see Afghanistan going back in time in 20 years, of course it’s scary,” she says.
“It's a shared feeling. It's a shared experience for girls all over the world.”
This award, she says, is an opportunity for young Afghan girls to once again remind the world of the restrictions they face every day – a reminder to “not forget Afghan girls.”
Marc Dullaert, founder of the KidsRights Foundation, which runs the award, highlighted that a “staggering” number of young women were currently excluded from education.
“Nila’s inspiring work to give them a voice that will be heard around the world makes her a worthy winner of this year’s 20th International Peace Prize,” he added.
It’s also a reminder that her generation – although young – can make a difference, Nila hopes.
“I think a lot of times when we talk about issues and different causes, we talk about it with a very adult approach of like oh, this is very serious,” she says.
“The world is a very scary place, but there is an approach that is more like Gen Z…and we can take small steps and…do everything we can.”
