Hanifa Safi

Who was Hanifa Safi?

Hanifa Safi was the regional head of the Women's Affairs Ministry for Laghman Province, Afghanistan, since 2008. She worked on cases concerning violence against women, supporting the women to overcome the violence. On July 13, Hanifa Safi was killed by a bomb attached to her car, also wounding her husband and her daughter, while driving through Laghman's capital Mehtar Lam. Mehtar Lam lies roughly 150 km north-east of Kabul. The assassination was widely condemned including by the United Nations. In 2006, in a similar case, the regional head for Women's Affairs in Kandahar Province was gunned down by the Taliban.