Author: Gayle Lemmon

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of New York Times bestsellers Ashley’s War and The Dressmaker of Khair Khana.
“Imminent Danger” in Afghanistan: Entrepreneur Kamila Sidiqi in Conversation With Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

“Imminent Danger” in Afghanistan: Kamila Sidiqi in Conversation With Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

On Saturday, three car bombs detonated in Kabul, Afghanistan, in front of the Sayed Al-Shuhada school—specifically targeting young girls. At least 85 people were killed. The escalating violence in the country has been made worse by the recent Biden administration decision to withdraw troops from the region by September 11 of this year.

This interview between Kamila Sidiqi, an Afghan serial entrepreneur, and Gayle Tzemach Lemmon was conducted just days before the Kabul weekend attack, and gives a sense of the simultaneous sense of fear, hope and dread on the ground in Afghanistan.

Girls in White Dresses

Forced child marriage isn’t just a problem abroad. Thousands of U.S. girls are married off each year—often to adult men—in places like the South Bronx and Lincoln City and the Silicon Valley. It’s time state laws protected them.

Too Young to Marry

The following is excerpted from Too Young to Marry in the Winter 2015 issue of Ms. Subscribe today and get the issue delivered straight to your doorstep! When Kakenya Ntaiya was a 7-year-old schoolgirl in Kenya, she worried that her family would soon marry her off and she would be forced to become a child raising children. She had […]

Giving Birth to Progress

By Isobel Coleman and Gayle Tzemach Lemmon As we head into the key Bonn Conference on December 5, which will discuss the future of Afghanistan, Ms. has published in its new issue a report on progress being made for Afghan women in reducing maternal mortality and improving women’s health. It shows that when resources are […]

Afghan Women Entrepreneurs

I first traveled to Afghanistan in December 2005 to report on a new phenomenon: A young generation of Afghan women entrepreneurs who had emerged in the years following the Taliban’s fall. Many people told me these women did not exist. Women worked in microfinance, they told me, not small business. And at first I grew […]

Karzai Threatens To Close Afghan Women’s Shelters

Women’s shelters in Afghanistan, long under fire from conservatives in the country, now face their toughest battle yet for survival. A government proposal now being considered would bar non-governmental organizations from running private safe houses and bring the 14 women’s shelters opened over the last decade under the direct control and supervision of the Ministry […]

Afghan Women Rising

Less than a year before President Obama’s stated date for the beginning of military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the blizzard of bad news confronting the country’s women feels endless and unstoppable. But there is another, far less reported reality worthy of attention: Against a daunting constellation of obstacles and dangers, Afghan women are making progress, often […]