Mélissa Cornet is a women’s rights researcher who lived and worked in Afghanistan from January 2018 until after the fall of Kabul.
Prior to August 2021, she researched women’s economic empowerment, their involvement in elections, in the peace process, violence against women, among other topics. After the fall in August 2021, Mélissa continued to travel to a dozen provinces for her research, offering a unique perspective from inside the country on the degrading situation of the rights of Afghan women and girls. Since then, she has continued working on women’s rights under the Taliban, publishing papers on the impact of the food crisis on women and girls, on how to include women in aid delivery, on the mental health situation of women aid workers, and on women’s economic empowerment programs in a country where they are no longer allowed to study or move without a chaperon.
She is a cited expert on the issue of women’s rights in the country, and has been interviewed by media outlets including The Guardian, BBC, VOA, The Times and Frontline, as well as numerous French newspapers. She has appeared on ABC News, MSNBC, France 24, BFM TV, or Arte, and has been a guest speaker for events at the House of Commons and at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
She was named laureate with Kiana Hayeri on the 14th Carmignac Photojournalism Award in 2024.
