Shakar: A Woman's Journey from Afghanistan

An Afghanistani Woman's Journey 'Fascinating...an enticingly interesting read' Baroness Warsi, former Foreign Office Senior Minister of State Born in rural Afghanistan, Shakardokht Jafari became a refugee aged just six, after a harrowing half-year trek to Iran. There, at twelve, she discovered she had been promised in marriage at birth to an older cousin. Resisting no fewer than three arranged marriages, she fought to choose her own husband, education and career, defying convention to study radiation technologies at Tehran University. Returning to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, she was asked to re-establish a cancer facility in Kabul, which meant studying first for higher qualifications in the UK. With Islamist insurgency on the rise again, her lawyer husband fled to join her, driving a minicab to make ends meet. The inventor of a method for improving outcomes of radiotherapy on cancer patients, Shakar has become one of Britain's leading medical entrepreneurs. Ironically, at the same time she has faced one of her biggest battles - to save her own health. This remarkable woman, winner of a string of awards for business innovation, is also a leading campaigner for girls' education in Afghanistan. She tells her extraordinary story with disarming candour.

A Woman's Journey from Afghanistan Shakardokht Jafari was born in Daykundi, Afghanistan in 1977 and grew up as a refugee in Iran, where she completed her BSc in radiation technologies at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. After moving back to Afghanistan, she secured a teaching post in radiology at Kabul Medical University. In 2010 she moved to the University of Surrey in the UK to study a master's in medical physics, becoming the first Afghan woman to earn a PhD in that subject. She was awarded the Schlumberger Foundation Faculty for the Future award for her second year of studies. The founder of her own radiation technology company, she is a winner of a Women in Innovation award and is chair of the charity Education Bridge for Afghanistan.