Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sackett. My guest today has a remarkable life story which does much to encapsulate the tragedy of Afghanistan's recent history, a story of suffering, courage, thwarted ambition and broken dreams.

Fausia Kufi was the unwanted sixth child of an uneducated mother and a local

politician father. As a newborn, she nearly died of neglect. Somehow, she survived and then thrived at

school. She had a dream of becoming a doctor till the Taliban took over Afghanistan in the 1990s and put new restrictions on women and

girls. She defied the mullahs, she got a degree, worked on child protection for the UN,

and then entered Afghan politics, becoming deputy speaker of the Afghan parliament and a powerful

voice campaigning for women's rights and greater democratization.

She survived attempts on her life and even toyed with a run for president before, in 2020,

joining the Afghan government's negotiating team searching for a political deal with the Taliban.

That, of course, was superseded by the pullout of the US-led NATO force in Afghanistan

and the Taliban's toppling of Ashrafgani's government in Kabul.

For the past nine months, she's been in exile,

watching the Taliban reassert its repressive religious rule

while her country slides towards economic and

humanitarian catastrophe. Is there any glimmer of light in Afghanistan's darkness?

Well, Fausia Kufi joins me now. Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you. It's good to be with you.

Well, it's great to have you in this studio.

I'm sure you wish you were speaking to me from Kabul, from Afghanistan, but you have been in exile

since the Taliban returned to power. How difficult for you is that separation from your country?

Extremely difficult. I never actually wished. I never hope to leave

the country that gave me the identity, a country that I did not only invest my time, but I invested

my blood to make it a better country for everyone. It has been a very difficult decision for me to

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