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Let me tell you a story

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about a little girl named Naghma.

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Naghma lived in a refugee camp

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with her parents and her eight brothers and sisters.

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Every morning, her father would wake up

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in the hopes he'd be picked for construction work,

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and on a good month he would earn 50 dollars.

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The winter was very harsh,

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and unfortunately, Naghma's brother died

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and her mother became very ill.

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In desperation, her father went to a neighbor

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to borrow 2,500 dollars.

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After several months of waiting,

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the neighbor became very impatient,

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and he demanded that he be paid back.

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Unfortunately, Naghma's
father didn't have the money,

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and so the two men agreed to a jirga.

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So simply put, a jirga is a form of mediation

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that's used in Afghanistan's informal justice system.

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It's usually presided over by religious leaders

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and village elders,

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and jirgas are often used in
rural countries like Afghanistan,

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where there's deep-seated resentment

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against the formal system.

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At the jirga, the men sat together

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and they decided that the best way to satisfy the debt

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would be if Naghma married
the neighbor's 21-year old son.

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She was six.

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Now, stories like Naghma unfortunately

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are all too common,

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and from the comforts of our home,

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we may look at these stories as another

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crushing blow to women's rights.

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And if you watched the Afghanistan on the news,

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you may have this view that it's a failed state.

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However, Afghanistan does have a legal system,

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and while jirgas are built on
long-standing tribal customs,

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even in jirgas, laws are supposed to be followed,

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and it goes without saying

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that giving a child to satisfy a debt

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is not only grossly immoral, it's illegal.

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In 2008, I went to Afghanistan

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for a justice-funded program,

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and I went there originally on this nine-month program

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to train Afghan lawyers.

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In that nine months, I went around the country

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and I talked to hundreds of
people that were locked up,

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and I talked to many businesses

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that were also operating in Afghanistan.

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And within these conversations,

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I started hearing the connections

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between the businesses and the people,

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and how laws that were meant to protect them

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were being underused,

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while gross and illegal punitive
measures were over-used.

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And so this put me on a quest for justness,

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and what justness means to me

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is using laws for their intended purpose,

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which is to protect.

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The role of laws is to protect.

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So as a result, I decided to open up a private practice,

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and I became the first foreigner to litigate

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in Afghan courts.

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Throughout this time, I also studied many laws,

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I talked to many people,

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I read up on many cases,

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and I found that the lack of justness

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is not just a problem in Afghanistan,

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but it's a global problem.

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And while I originally shied away from

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representing human rights cases

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because I was really concerned about how it would

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affect me both professionally and personally,

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I decided that the need for justness was so great

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that I couldn't continue to ignore it.

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And so I started representing people like Naghma

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pro bono also.

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Now, since I've been in Afghanistan

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and since I've been an attorney for over 10 years,

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I've represented from CEOs to Fortune 500 countries

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to ambassadors to little girls like Naghma

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and with much success,

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and the reason for my success is very simple:

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I work the system from the inside out

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and use the laws in the ways

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that they're intended to be used.

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I find that

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achieving justness in places like Afghanistan

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is difficult, and there's three reasons.

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The first reason is that simply put,

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people are very uneducated as
to what their legal rights were,

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and I find that this is a global problem.

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The second issue

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is that even with laws on the books,

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it's often superseded or ignored

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by tribal customs, like in the first jirga

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that sold Naghma off.

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And the third problem with achieving justness

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is that even with good, existing laws on the books,

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there aren't people or lawyers that are willing to fight

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for those laws.

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And that's what I do: I use existing laws,

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often unused laws,

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and I work those to the benefits of my clients.

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We all need to create a global culture

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of human rights

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and be investors in a global human rights economy,

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and by working in this mindset,

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we can significantly improve justice globally.

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Now let's get back to Naghma.

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Several people heard about this story,

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and so they contacted me because they wanted

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to pay the 2,500 debt.

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And it's not just that simple:

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you can't just throw money at this problem

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and think that it's going to disappear.

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That's not how it works in Afghanistan.

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So I told them I'd get involved,

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but in order to get involved, what needed to happen

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is a second jirga needed to be called,

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a jirga of appeals.

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And so in order for that to happen,

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we needed to get the village elders together,

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we needed to get the tribal leaders together,

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the religious leaders.

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Naghma's father needed to agree,

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the neighbor needed to agree,

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and also his son needed to agree.

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And I thought, if I'm going to get involved in this thing,

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then they also need to agree that I preside over it.

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So, after hours of talking

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and tracking them down,

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and about 30 cups of tea,

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they finally agreed that we could sit down

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for a second jirga, and we did.

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And what was different about the second jirga

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is this time, we put the law at the center of it,

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and it was very important for me

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that they all understood that Naghma

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had a right to be protected.

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And at the end of this jirga,

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it was ordered by the judge

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that the first decision was erased,

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and that the 2,500 debt was satisfied,

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and we all signed a written order

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where all the men acknowledged

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that what they did was illegal,

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and if they did it again, that they would go to prison.

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Most —

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(Applause)

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Thanks.

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And most importantly,

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the engagement was terminated

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and Naghma was free.

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Protecting Naghma and her right to be free

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protects us.

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Now, with my job, there's above-average

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amount of risks that are involved.

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I've been temporarily detained.

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I've been accused of running a brothel,

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accused of being a spy.

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I've had a grenade thrown at my office.

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It didn't go off, though.

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But I find that with my job,

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that the rewards far outweigh the risks,

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and as many risks as I take,

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my clients take far greater risks,

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because they have a lot more to lose

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if their cases go unheard,

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or worse, if they're penalized
for having me as their lawyer.

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With every case that I take,

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I realize that as much as
I'm standing behind my clients,

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that they're also standing behind me,

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and that's what keeps me going.

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Law as a point of leverage

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is crucial in protecting all of us.

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Journalists are very vital in making sure

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that that information is given to the public.

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Too often, we receive information from journalists

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but we forget how that information was given.

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This picture is a picture of the

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British press corps in Afghanistan.

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It was taken a couple of years
ago by my friend David Gill.

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According to the Committee to Protect Journalists,

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since 2010, there have been thousands of journalists

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who have been threatened, injured,

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killed, detained.

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Too often, when we get this information,

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we forget who it affects

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or how that information is given to us.

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What many journalists do, both foreign and domestic,

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is very remarkable, especially
in places like Afghanistan,

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and it's important that we never forget that,

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because what they're protecting

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is not only our right to receive that information

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but also the freedom of the press, which is vital

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to a democratic society.

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Matt Rosenberg is a journalist in Afghanistan.

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He works for the New York Times,

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and unfortunately, a few months ago

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he wrote an article that displeased

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people in the government.

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As a result, he was temporarily detained

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and he was illegally exiled out of the country.

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I represent Matt,

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and after dealing with the government,

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I was able to get legal acknowledgement

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that in fact he was illegally exiled,

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and that freedom of the
press does exist in Afghanistan,

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and there's consequences if that's not followed.

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And I'm happy to say that

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as of a few days ago,

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the Afghan government

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formally invited him back into the country

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and they reversed their exile order of him.

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(Applause)

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If you censor one journalist, then it intimidates others,

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and soon nations are silenced.

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It's important that we protect our journalists

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and freedom of the press,

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because that makes governments
more accountable to us

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and more transparent.

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Protecting journalists and our right

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to receive information protects us.

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Our world is changing. We live
in a different world now,

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and what were once individual problems

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are really now global problems for all of us.

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Two weeks ago, Afghanistan had its first

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democratic transfer of power

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and elected president Ashraf Ghani, which is huge,

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and I'm very optimistic about him,

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and I'm hopeful that he'll give Afghanistan

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the changes that it needs,

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especially within the legal sector.

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We live in a different world.

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We live in a world where my eight-year old daughter

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only knows a black president.

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There's a great possibility that our next president

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will be a woman,

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and as she gets older, she may question,

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can a white guy be president?

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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Our world is changing, and we need to change with it,

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and what were once individual problems

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are problems for all of us.

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According to UNICEF,

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there are currently over 280 million

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boys and girls who are married

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under the age of 15.

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280 million.

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Child marriages prolong the vicious cycle

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of poverty, poor health, lack of education.

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At the age of 12, Sahar was married.

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She was forced into this marriage

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and sold by her brother.

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When she went to her in-laws' house,

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they forced her into prostitution.

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Because she refused, she was tortured.

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She was severely beaten with metal rods.

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They burned her body.

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They tied her up in a basement and starved her.

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They used pliers to take out her fingernails.

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At one point,

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she managed to escape from this torture chamber

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to a neighbor's house,

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and when she went there, instead of protecting her,

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they dragged her back

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to her husband's house,

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and she was tortured even worse.

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When I met first Sahar, thankfully,

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Women for Afghan Women

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gave her a safe haven to go to.

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You know, as a lawyer, I try to be very strong

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for all my clients,

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because that's very important to me,

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but seeing her,

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how broken and very weak as she was,

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was very difficult.

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It took weeks for us to really get to

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what happened to her

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when she was in that house,

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but finally she started opening up to me,

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and when she opened up,

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what I heard was

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she didn't know what her rights were,

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but she did know she had a certain level of protection

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by her government that failed her,

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and so we were able to talk about

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what her legal options were.

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And so we decided to take this case

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to the Supreme Court.

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Now, this is extremely significant,

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because this is the first time

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that a victim of domestic violence in Afghanistan

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was being represented by a lawyer,

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a law that's been on the books for years and years,

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but until Sahar had never been used.

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In addition to this, we also decided

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to sue for civil damages,

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again using a law that's never been used,

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but we used it for her case.

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So there we were at the Supreme Court

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arguing in front of 12 Afghan justices,

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me as an American female lawyer,

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and Sahar, a young woman

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who when I met her couldn't speak above a whisper.

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She stood up,

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she found her voice,

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and my girl told me that she wanted justice,

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and she got it.

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At the end of it all, the court unanimously agreed

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that her in-laws should be
arrested for what they did to her,

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her fucking brother should also be arrested

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for selling her

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— (Applause) —

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and they agreed that she did have a right

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to civil compensation.

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What Sahar has shown us is that we can attack

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existing bad practices by using the laws

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in the ways that they're intended to be used,

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and by protecting Sahar,

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we are protecting ourselves.

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After having worked in Afghanistan

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for over six years now,

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a lot of my family and friends now think

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that what I do looks like this.

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(Laughter)

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But in all actuality, what I do looks like this.

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Now, we can all do something.

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I'm not saying we should all buy a
plane ticket and go to Afghanistan,

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but we can all be contributors

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to a global human rights economy.

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We can create a culture of transparency

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and accountability to the laws,

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and make governments more accountable to us

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as we are to them.

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A few months ago, a South African lawyer

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visited me in my office

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and he said, "I wanted to meet you.

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I wanted to see what a crazy person looked like."

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The laws are ours,

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and no matter what your ethnicity,

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nationality, gender, race,

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they belong to us,

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and fighting for justice is not an act of insanity.

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Businesses also need to get with the program.

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A corporate investment in human rights

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is a capital gain on your businesses,

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and whether you're a business, an NGO,

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or a private citizen, rule of law benefits all us.

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And by working together with a concerted mindset,

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through the people, public, and private sector,

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we can create a global human rights economy

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and all become global investors in human rights.

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And by doing this,

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we can achieve justness together.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)