✍️ By: Hamia Naderi
After the ratification of Afghanistan’s third constitution in 1964, women were granted the right to vote and to run for parliament for the first time.
Following these legal reforms, several women were appointed to high government positions, among them Kubra Noorzai, who became Minister of Public Health, making her the first woman in Afghanistan’s history to hold a ministerial post.
Kubra Noorzai was born in Kabul in 1932 and completed her secondary education at Malalai High School. She then enrolled in the Faculty of Science at Kabul University and, in 1958, went to France to pursue higher education.
After graduating from Kabul University, she was appointed deputy principal of Malalai High School and later became its principal—the first Afghan national to hold that position, which until then had been filled by French educators.
During her tenure as principal, she expanded the school’s library and equipped its chemistry and physics laboratories with modern facilities of the time.
Between 1952 and 1957, in addition to leading Malalai High School, she also served as the head of the Women’s Faculty at Kabul University and director of the Women’s Institute.
In 1957, the Women’s Institute was renamed Da Mirmanu Tolana (The Women’s Society) and officially registered as a state institution, working to improve women’s lives and promote their participation in society.
In 1964, she was appointed as a member of the Advisory Commission for Reviewing the Constitution, which had 23 members, including only two women—Kubra Noorzai and Masuma Esmati.
The First Female Minister of Afghanistan
Kubra Noorzai was first appointed as Minister of Public Health in 1965 and continued in the position after her reappointment in 1967, serving until 1969.
During her ministry, she traveled extensively to provinces and remote areas of Afghanistan, established several clinics and hospitals, and founded the Family Guidance Association in Kabul and other provinces.
The Kabul Times, in its Monday, December 6, 1965 issue, described her appointment as the country’s first female minister as a sign of women’s growing significance in Afghanistan.
In its December 20 issue of the same year, the newspaper published an article titled “The First Woman Minister,” noting that two weeks into her tenure, she already understood what steps the Ministry of Public Health needed to take.
Legacy
Kubra Noorzai never married, never left Afghanistan, and was among the few women of her time who appeared in public without wearing a headscarf.
She passed away on January 30, 1986, at her home in Karte-3, Kabul, and was buried at the Shuhada-ye-Salehin Cemetery.
