'Don't forget us': Teenage refugee reminds Gen Z of silenced Afghan girls

When Nila Ibrahimi set out to build a website telling the stories of Afghan girls, it wasn't just to give them a voice.

The 17-year-old Afghan refugee was also determined to remind her fellow Gen Zs in her adopted country, Canada, that they were similar - they even listened to Taylor Swift just like other teenage girls around the world.

"I want to make them as real as possible so that other people, especially young people, Gen Z specifically, can put themselves in their shoes," she told the BBC.

Nila spoke to the BBC earlier this week, before picking up the International Children’s Peace Prize previously won by education campaigner Malala Yousafzai and climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Nila's is, perhaps, not an easy task. The plight of Afghanistan's women and girls can feel a world away to young people living in Canada, where Nila found a home after fleeing her home country as the Taliban took over three years ago.

In that time, the Taliban have banned teenage girls from education, banned women from travelling long distances without a male chaperone, and now ordered them to keep their voices down in public - effectively silencing half the population.

The Taliban have defended the rulings to the BBC previously by saying they align with religious texts.

"The differences [between Afghanistan and Canada] are vast, so it makes it hard for them to feel connected," acknowledges Nila.

That is why she helped set up HerStory - a place where she and others help share the stories of Afghan women and girls in their own words, both inside and out of the country.

"So many times we are lost in the differences that we don't see the similarities and that's our goal, to show that to the world."

Nila Ibrahim was chosen from 165 nominees as the 20th winner of the prestigious prize.

The award recognises not just the work done on HerStory, but also her ion for standing up for women's rights in Afghanistan.

Nila's first stand for women's rights came in March 2021, when she ed other young Afghan girls in sharing a video of her singing online.

It was a small but powerful protest against a decree by the then-director of education in the Afghan capital, Kabul, who tried to ban girls over 12 singing in public. The attempted order was never implemented.

"That was when I really understood the importance of performing, the importance of speaking up and talking about these issues," explains Nila, who was part of a group called Sound of Afghanistan.

But less than six months later, everything would change - and, aged 14, she would have to flee with her family as the Taliban arrived.

The family - who are part of Afghanistan's Hazara minority - made the difficult journey to Pakistan, where they spent a year before being granted asylum in Canada.