Colonel Shafiqa Quraishi

Colonel Shafiqa Quraishi is the Director of Gender, Human, and Child Rights within the Ministry of the Interior. She began her career in the Afghan National Police. As Director of Gender, Human, and Child Rights, Colonel Shafiqa created and led a working group on Afghan National Gender Recruitment Strategy, with the goal of increasing the number of women working in the Ministry of the Interior to 5,000 and of improving the quality of the Ministry’s service to the women and of Afghanistan. Beyond recruiting women, she’s worked toward securing benefits and incentives to increase the number of women in the workforce, including childcare, healthcare, maternity care, security, and skills training. Colonel Shafiqa has succeeded in securing promotions for women working in the Afghan National Police who had been unfairly passed over for advancement for years. She works in close partnership with those responsible for training the police force, and works to raise public awareness of gender rights and the important role that women can hold as police officers.