You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it. My guest today has a

personal story which suggests she has immense reserves of determination and self-belief.

From childhood, Kimberly Motley knew what it meant to be different,

to not fit in. She was raised in a poor part of Milwaukee in the American Midwest, the daughter

of a black former serviceman and his North Korean wife who'd met while he was on deployment

in South Korea. Kimberly struggled to put herself through

college and law school and became a public defender in Milwaukee's criminal court system. She was

ambitious. She wanted to earn better money, so she left her young family behind and signed up to a

US government program training lawyers in Afghanistan. A decade later, she can reflect on an

extraordinary experience. She quickly grew skeptical about the utility of her official role.

So she immersed herself in the realities of the Afghan courts and legal culture. Soon,

she was herself representing some of the countries abused and

powerless people, primarily women. She forced the Afghan system to listen to and afford legal

protection to women in a whole new way. Does her experience give grounds for hope or despair? Well, Kimberly Motley joins me now. Welcome to Hard Talk.

Thanks for having me. I want to take you back a little bit. I'm just wondering, whatever prompted you,

as a young lawyer in the United States, to sign up for this U.S. government program to go to Afghanistan. It seems quite a remarkable decision

to take as a young woman. Well, it definitely was. I mean, I went to Afghanistan in 2008,

basically to train and mentor Afghan defense attorneys. Prior to going there, I was a defense

attorney in the U.S., and it really was a financial decision. I have three kids, and going there would be making more than tripled my salary. So I went there to, it was my first time leaving the U.S. I didn't. I was going to say, you were in Milwaukee. Now, there's nothing wrong with Milwaukee, but it's in the Midwest of the United States. It's a city which perhaps isn't the most cosmopolitan in America. I just wonder how

much you knew about Afghanistan. You know, I didn't know much about Afghanistan other than what most

people know from what they see in the news about, you know, the war-torn country. I didn't know anything.

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