Columbia GS Student Speaks at the United Nations During CSW67

As part of the United Nations’ 67th annual meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW67) in early March, Sara Wahedi ‘24GS spoke on two panels during the weeks-long event: one organized by President of the General Assembly Csaba Kőrösi on the role technology plays in addressing violence against women and girls across the world, and another entitled Breaking the Silence on Femicide: Ending Gender-based Violence Against Women and Girls. 

“Women have been using the digital world as a vehicle of change, of frustration, of vying for their fundamental human rights. Digital technology has given women who may not be able to do so otherwise the ability to speak out and have their voices heard,” Wahedi said in a recent interview with the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

In addition to being an ardent advocate for Afghan women and girls’ rights, using her own voice to elevate their stories to a wider audience was central to Wahedi’s mission during CSW67. 

Technology can be a vital asset in keeping women and girls safe throughout Afghanistan, something Wahedi knows on a personal level. She is the CEO and co-founder of Ehtesab, a crowdsourcing app that gives residents of Kabul real-time updates on safety situations throughout the city. 

During the panel, Wahedi spoke about how, by using Ehtesab, “women are being provided a platform to be able to safely record and report instances of domestic violence, and instances that affect their mobility within urban spaces, and also violations of women’s rights.”

Since it launched in July 2020, Ehtesab has become a reliable source of information amid rampant social media mis- and disinformation in Afghanistan’s major cities, sending real-time alerts to users on emergency situations around them.

“I’ve made it my personal mission to work on information inequality in Afghanistan and ensure Afghans are a part of the conversation when it comes to what is happening in their communities,” Wahedi said in an interview with us last year. “We want to create a precedent for reliable, trustworthy information. We hope that it will become the status quo for disseminating information ethically and equitably across Afghanistan.”

Read more about Wahedi’s innovative work with Ehtesab.