xDr. Massouda Jalal (داکتر مسعوده جلال) is the first woman in the history of Afghanistan who ran for the Office of the President of Afghanistan in 2002, and again in 2004. She holds the distinction of being the first woman to compete for presidency in Afghanistan, a highly conservative society where women's engagement in public life was considered improper, unacceptable, and previously banned. Dr. Jalal emerged as a leading voice of Afghan women in 2001 after her election as the Representative to the 2002 Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly). While serving her term, she became one of the frontrunners for the position of Interim President, opposite to ex-president Hamid Karzai. She was also the only woman candidate in the 2004 Afghan presidential election. In 2004 election, Jalal was placed 6th among 17 male candidates. She has a background as a professor at the Kabul Medical University, and she has also worked in leadership positions in the UN World Food Programme and UNHCR offices in Afghansitan. She is fluent in Persian, Pashto, English and Hindi/Urdu and moderately fluent in French and German. Early life and education Born to a middle-class family in Kapisa Province of Afghanistan, one of seven children, Jalal moved to Kabul to attend high school. After scoring the second highest marks at the national level in the National College Entrance Exam of Afghanistan (Konkor), she attended the Kabul Medical University, where she later joined as a faculty. Amidst raging war in the early 1990s, she and her academic colleagues founded the Human Rights Commission which reported human rights violations to the UN Special Envoy to Afghanistan. She was a member of the faculty in the Kabul Medical University until 1996, when the Taliban government had her removed. After her removal from the Kabul Medical University's faculty, she worked as a National Senior Program Officer and Head of Women's Department for United Nations-World Food Programme (UN-WFP), Consultant to the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Senior Program Officer for the United Nation's Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Under the Taliban rule, her efforts for women and girls’ right to education and work led her to get arrested for political reasons. She was released from prison through United Nation Headquarter's intervention. Her husband, Professor Dr. Faizullah Jalal, has been a professor of Law and Political Science at Kabul University for the past 30 years and they have three children. Taliban security