⁍ Fatima Sultani is hoping to climb Afghanistan’s Mir Samir mountain and Mount Everest.

---

⁍ In August she became the youngest woman in the world to summit Noshakh Peak in the Hindu Kush mountain range in northern Afghanistan.

---

⁍ When the Taliban ruled the country between 1996 and 2001, they banned education for females and barred women from leaving the house without a male relative.

---

⁍ Many women in Afghanistan worry the militant group may exert its influence through formal political channels.

---

– Fatima Sultani became the youngest woman ever to summit a mountain in Afghanistan in August. Now the 18-year-old hopes to become the first Afghan woman to summit Mount Everest, Reuters reports. “My main goal is to show the world that Afghan women are strong and can do the most challenging work that men do,” she says. “When I became aware that women from foreign countries come here to conquer high peaks I thought … why can’t we Afghan women conquer these peaks?” Sultani and her team of nine young mountaineers—three of whom are women—are currently climbing throughout the coronavirus pandemic and hope to summit Afghanistan’s Mir Samir mountain before heading to Nepal.