Background
General Suhaila was born in Kabul, Afghanistan.
General minister politician Surgeon
General Suhaila was born in Kabul, Afghanistan.
After completing high school, she attended Kabul Medical University but completed her medical studies at Moscow State University in what was then the Soviet Union.
Lieutenant General She served as the Minister of Public Health from December 2001 to 2004. Prior to that, she worked as the Surgeon General in the military of Afghanistan. As a government minister, she has been given the title Honorable before her name.
Siddiq is one of few female government leaders in Afghanistan, and is the only woman in Afghanistan to hold the title of Lieutenant General.
She has been working for the government of Afghanistan since Mohammed Zahir Shah"s reign. She belongs to the royal Barakzai Mohammadzai Pashtun lineage although some western media sources (ie British Broadcasting Corporation News) mistakenly described her as an ethnic Tajik.
During the government of Mohammad Najibullah (1987-1992), Siddiq was given the rank of surgeon general. She was the chief of surgery at the main Kabul hospital in Wazir Akbar Khan before and after the Taliban.
Under the Taliban, she kept up the instruction of medicine for women, and managed to reopen the women"s section of the hospital where she worked, after the Taliban had closed lieutenant
After the removal of the Taliban government from Afghanistan by the United States and British Armed Forces, Siddiq was appointed as the Minister of Public Health and sworn in by Interim President Hamid Karzai. One of her first acts was to request help from the international community for the establishment a medical work force of women. She met a team from the World Health Organization (World Health Organization) that was sent to the war-torn country to assess it health needs, and said that the training of Afghan women is key because they are a crucial asset in the health system.
Suhaila Siddiq is considered a heroine from the Taliban period by many feminists.
She is quoted as saying, "When the religious police came with their canes and raised their arms to hit me, I raised mine to hit them back. Then they lowered their arms and let me go."
The following is a list of a few of the publicized activities of Suhaila Siddiq as minister:
In April 2002, Seddiq oversaw the vaccination of about 6 million Afghan children against polio on behalf of the United Nations Children"s Fund.
In July 2002, Seddiq met with a Chinese delegation who have agreed to fund renovation of what is promised to be Afghanistan"s most modern hospital. In November 2006, Seddiq presented a speech on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome in Afghanistan to Eurasianet in New New York