Suhaila Siddiq (11 March 1949Haqiqat
/ref> – 4 December 2020), often referred to as 'General Suhaila', was an Afghan politician. 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 was given the title Honorable before her name. Siddiq was one of the few female government leaders in Afghanistan, and is the only woman in the history of Afghanistan to have held the title of lieutenant general. General Seddiq had worked for the government of Afghanistan since the reign of Mohammed Zahir Shah.

Early life and education

General Suhaila was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. She was born on March 11, her exact birth year is unknown, believed to be either 1938 or 1949. She belonged to the royal

Barakzai Bārakzai ( ps, بارکزی, ''Bārakzay;'' plur. ps, بارکزي, ''Bārakzī'') is the name of a Pashtun tribe from present-day, Kandahar, Afghanistan. '"Barakzai" is a common name among the Pashtuns and it means "son of Barak" in Pashto. A ...

Mohammadzai Mohammadzai ( ps, محمدزی), also spelled Moḥammadzay (meaning "descendants of Mohammad"), is a Pashtun sub-tribe or clan of the Barakzai which is part of the Durrani confederacy of tribes. They are primarily centered on Kandahar, Kabul a ...

Pashtun Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically re ...

lineage. She was one of six daughters; her father was a governor of Kandahar. After completing high school, she attended

Kabul Medical University Kabul Medical University (Pashto د کابل طبي پوهنتون / Dari: پوهنتون طبي کابل) formerly known as Kabul Medical Institute) is located in Kabul, Afghanistan on the campus of Kabul University. The medical institution was i ...

but completed her medical studies at Moscow State University in what was then the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

Careers

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 The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...

. 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 it. Asne Seierstad, ''

The Bookseller of Kabul '' Bookseller of Kabul'' is a non-fiction book written by Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad, about a bookseller, Shah Muhammad Rais (whose name was changed to Sultan Khan), and his family in Kabul, Afghanistan, published in Norwegian in 2002 ...

'', trans. Ingrid Christopherson, Virago, 2004, , 92. George W

Siddiq was well respected by many Afghan feminists for her actions during the Taliban era. Both she and her sister Sidiqa, who was a professor at the Kabul Polytechnical Institute, were two of very few women who successfully refused to wear the burka. She is quoted as having said, "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." After the removal of the Taliban government from Afghanistan by the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

British Armed Forces The British Armed Forces, also known as His Majesty's Armed Forces, are the military forces responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom, its Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies. They also promote the UK's wider interests, s ...

, Siddiq was appointed as the Minister of Public Health and sworn in by

Interim President An acting president is a person who temporarily fills the role of a country's president when the incumbent president is unavailable (such as by illness or a vacation) or when the post is vacant (such as for death, injury, resignation, dismissal ...

Hamid Karzai Hamid Karzai (; Pashto/ fa, حامد کرزی, , ; born 24 December 1957) is an Afghan statesman who served as the fourth president of Afghanistan from July 2002 to September 2014, including as the first elected president of the Islamic Repub ...

. One of her first acts was to request help from the international community for the establishment of a medical work force of women. She met a team from the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...

(WHO) that was sent to the war-torn country to assess its health needs, and said that the training of Afghan women is key because they are a crucial asset in the health system. As minister, in April 2002, Siddiq oversaw the

vaccination Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating ...

of about 6 million Afghan children against

polio Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe s ...

on behalf of the

United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to ...

. In July 2002, she met with a Chinese delegation who agreed to fund the

renovation Renovation (also called remodeling) is the process of improving broken, damaged, or outdated structures. Renovations are typically done on either commercial or residential buildings. Additionally, renovation can refer to making something new, ...

of what was promised to be Afghanistan's most modern hospital. In November 2006, Siddiq presented a speech on

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

in Afghanistan to Eurasianet in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Personal life and death

Siddiq lived all her life in Afghanistan. She never married and claimed she was too dedicated to her profession and didn't have time for a husband: "I didn't marry because I didn't want to take orders from a man". Siddiq was one of five daughters of Mohammad Siddiq, a governor of

Kandahar Kandahar (; Kandahār, , Qandahār) is a List of cities in Afghanistan, city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population ...

Herat Herāt (; Persian: ) is an oasis city and the third-largest city of Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Selseleh-ye Safēd ...

during the reign of King Zahir Shah Khan Her younger sister Mastura Aziz-Sultan, who died in Washington D.C. in 2014, was also a physician, and specialized in Ob/Gyn. Her other sisters reside in San Diego, Geneva, and Sydney. One of her other younger sisters, Sediqa, an engineer passed in 2001 in Kabul. Siddiq had

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

. She died from complications of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

in Kabul on 4 December 2020, at the age of 72, during the

COVID-19 pandemic in Afghanistan The COVID-19 pandemic in Afghanistan is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). The virus was confirmed to have spread to Afghanistan when its index case, in ...

References

External links

'We Can Only Rely On Ourselves To Rebuild Our Country'Obituary: Doctor, General, Minister, Trailblazer, Suhaila Sediq, 1938-2020
{{DEFAULTSORT:Siddiqi, Suhaila 1949 births 2020 deaths Pashtun women Afghan feminists Health ministers of Afghanistan Public health ministers Women government ministers of Afghanistan People from Kabul Moscow State University alumni Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Afghanistan People with Alzheimer's disease 20th-century Afghan women 20th-century Afghan politicians 21st-century Afghan women