On this International Women’s Day, we find ourselves in a moment of global reckoning.
Across continents, women’s rights are being rolled back — not quietly, not gradually, but deliberately. Hard-won gains in political participation, bodily autonomy, and equal representation are being challenged, restricted, and, in some places, dismantled.
Nowhere is this more visible than in Afghanistan, where women have been systematically erased from public life. Girls are barred from secondary and university education, making Afghanistan the only country in the world that denies girls access to schooling beyond primary level. Women are excluded from most employment and denied freedom of movement. Their political participation —once a hard-fought achievement — has been extinguished completely. Their voices are no longer permitted in public.
But Afghanistan is not alone.
Here in the United States, core institutional commitments to women’s leadership have been dismantled. The closure of the Office of Global Women’s Issues at the State Department and the erosion of the bipartisan Women, Peace and Security framework represent a retreat from hard-won commitments to advancing women’s leadership in peace and security. When the infrastructure supporting women’s participation is hollowed out, the consequences extend far beyond our borders.
At a time when so many feel confused, fearful, and even powerless, Mina’s List is choosing a different path.
Effective March 8, Palwasha Hassan will serve as Executive Director of Mina’s List — ushering in a new chapter of leadership shaped by lived experience and a steadfast commitment to advancing women’s leadership in politics and peace worldwide.
We are doubling down on our conviction that women must lead.
Not as symbolism.
Not as aspiration.
But as strategy.
When women lead, societies are more stable.
When women participate, peace is more durable.
When women are excluded, instability deepens.
Palwasha’s journey is deeply intertwined with the modern Afghan women’s rights movement. Her work has also spanned the global women, peace, and security field, including serving as a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for Women, Peace, and Security and facilitating regional civil society dialogues across Central and South Asia in support of human rights and peace.
As a young woman living in a refugee camp in Pakistan, she began organizing women and girls around education and civic participation — building leadership in the most constrained of environments, long before the world was paying attention.
In 1995, she represented Afghanistan as a youth delegate at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. That experience strengthened her resolve to ensure Afghan women would shape their country’s future — and inspired her to help found the Afghan Women’s Network, laying critical groundwork for coordinated advocacy and women’s political participation.
After the fall of the Taliban’s first regime, Palwasha helped rebuild a democratic Afghanistan, ensuring women were not excluded from the reconstruction of their country. Through her leadership at the Afghan Women’s Network and the Afghan Women’s Educational Center, she played a critical role in strengthening women’s political representation and advancing legal protections.
She has led under threat.
She has organized across divides.
She has insisted that women remain at the table where decisions are made.
This lived experience brings something invaluable to Mina’s List: wisdom forged in crisis, strategic clarity shaped by political reality, and leadership grounded in courage and endurance.
A founding Board Member of Mina’s List and most recently our Senior Technical and Program Director, Palwasha has helped guide the organization’s growth from its earliest days.
At a time when women in Afghanistan face systematic repression, and when global commitments to women’s leadership are wavering, it is both principled and strategic that Mina’s List be guided by a leader who has dedicated her life to advancing women’s political participation and peace.
We are deeply grateful to Teresa Casale for her steadfast leadership during one of the most challenging chapters in our organization’s history. Through skillful diplomacy, conviction, and perseverance, she sustained our mission through extraordinary upheaval.
International Women’s Day is not only a celebration — it is a call to clarity.
Progress is not inevitable.
Rights are not permanent.
Leadership must be cultivated, defended, and renewed.
Mina’s List remains unwavering in our belief that women are not victims of history, they are authors of the future.
And in a moment of global rollback, we are choosing not retreat, but resolve and leadership.
Onwards!
Tanya Henderson
President and Founder, Mina’s List
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