Zohra Daoud

Zohra Yousuf Daoud (Persian: زهره يوسف داود ) (born 1954, Kabul) is an Afghan TV celebrity, radio show host, journalist and citizen of the United States. In December 1972 Daoud became the only woman to this date ever to be crowned Miss Afghanistan, months before a bloodless coup forced King Zahir Shah into exile.

Throughout their stay in America, Daoud remained involved in the Afghan American community, using her spare time volunteering for her community's cause. In 1996 she co-founded the Afghan Women Association of Southern California, and she still hosts a radio talk show on the 24-hour Voice of Afghanistan. However, Zohra maintained a low profile about her former beauty queen status until 11 September 2001 when Daoud grew weary of the media's treatment of Afghan women as illiterate, burqa-clad victims, and felt the need to speak out.

In that context, Zohra began her new project Women for Afghan Women, an organization to promote Afghan women's human rights, in April 2001. As a part of that project she also co-authored a book [1] by the same name, that was edited by Sunita Mehta, and also featured contributions from Homaira Mamoor, Gloria Steinem and Eleanor Smeal and others.

Zohra also held negotiations with a Taliban delegation in the United States, being the first Afghan woman, and woman in general to hold such neogotiations, at the beginning of their rule, to put the case for liberation for her sisters back home and has spoken at various Human Rights conventions and conferences, including the Afghan Women's Summit, that was held in Brussels in December 2001.

In June 2005, she was also speaker at the Afghan Arts & Film Festival organized by Afghan Communicator at California State University, Northridge where she emphasized the importance of Afghan art and culture.

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