| Masuma Esmati-Wardak | |
| Office1: | Minister of Education |
| Term1: | 1990-1992 |
| Office2: | Member of the House of the People |
| Constituency2: | Kandahar |
| Term2: | 1965–1969 |
Masuma Esmati-Wardak (1930 -), was an Afghan writer and politician. She was jointly one of the first women to serve in the Afghan parliament in 1965, and served as Minister of Education in 1990-1992.
In 1953 she graduated from Kabul Women's College, and received a degree in business in the United States in 1958.[1]
In 1959, she and Kubra Noorzai became one of the first women to appear in public in Afghanistan without a veil after Queen Humaira Begum had removed hers, supporting the call by the Prime minister Mohammed Daoud Khan for women to voluntary remove their veil.[2]
In 1964 King Mohammed Zahir Shah appointed her to an advisory committee that reviewed the draft 1964 constitution,[3] which granted women the right to vote and stand for election. In 1965 she was elected to represent Kandahar in the House of the People of Parliament, and became a leading advocate of women's rights.[1] [4] She was the only one of the four women elected in 1965 to run for re-election in 1969, but lost her seat.[5]
In 1987 she became President of the Afghan Women's Council.
In May 1990 she was appointed cabinet minister of Education and Training in the government of Mohammad Najibullah.[6] She was one of two women in the cabinet alongside Saleha Farooq Etemadi, and one of the first women in the Afghan government.[7]