Malalai Joya has been described as the bravest woman in the world. As a teenager she worked as a women's rights activist under the Taliban, running underground classes and clinics in her native Afghanistan that would have resulted in her torture and execution if she'd been caught. After the fall of the Taliban, Malalai was elected as one of the few women to represent her province at the first assembly to frame a new Afghan constitution. Here she dared to speak out against the crimes of the warlords, who - backed by the Americans - now ruled the country. To her, their crimes were almost as bad as those of the hated Taliban, yet the West seemed content to support them as part of its realpolitik approach to Afghanistan. Her public denunciation resulted in several attempts to assassinate her, and for the last five years she has lived under constant threat, moving from safe house to safe house. It hasn't stopped her speaking out, though. She represents the voiceless, the oppressed, the victims and the innocents of Afghanistan's endless cycle of violence.