Sima Samar (Persian: سیما سمر; born 3 February 1957) is a Hazara human rights advocate, activist and medical doctor within national and international forums, who served as Minister of Women's Affairs of Afghanistan from December 2001 to 2003.
She practiced medicine at a government hospital in Kabul, but after a few months was forced to flee for her safety to her native Jaghori, where she provided medical treatment to patients throughout the remote areas of central Afghanistan.
In 1984, the government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan arrested her husband, and Samar and her young son fled to neighboring Pakistan.
After living as a refugee for over a decade, Samar returned to Afghanistan in 2002 to assume a cabinet post in the Afghan Transitional Administration led by Hamid Karzai.
[4] In 2019, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Samar as one of eight members of the High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement under the leadership of Federica Mogherini and Donald Kaberuka.