Summia Tora is a former Afghanistan Observatory Scholar at New America. She is the founder and executive director of Dosti Network which aims to reduce inequities among Afghans by serving as a vehicle to provide financial and immigration support to marginalized Afghans. The Dosti Network was borne out of Tora’s efforts to evacuate her own family from Afghanistan in August 2021. Through this process, she witnessed first-hand the inequities marginalized Afghans face while trying to access aid within the country or seeking to flee the country. Tora grew up as an Afghan refugee in Pakistan and has advocated for just refugee resettlement processes in the United States, Pakistan, and Greece.
Previously, Tora spearheaded an initiative focused on educating girls on menstrual hygiene and making reusable sanitary pads in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She has also worked with World Bank and Schmidt Futures to make scholarships and education accessible to refugees and girls.
Tora is Afghanistan’s first Rhodes Scholar holding a master of public policy from the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. She is currently pursuing a second master in international human rights law at the University of Oxford. Tora’s journey has been featured in the New York Times, BBC World, the Economist and NPR.
As an Afghanistan Observatory Scholar at New America, Tora works on a research project to investigate the role of social and economic inequalities among Afghans in fueling forced migration from Afghanistan prior to the collapse of the former government in August 2021. Through documenting stories of Afghan refugees, the project aims to evaluate whether and, if so, how pre-existing inequities in Afghan society play a role in forcing people to migrate; and whether these inequities in Afghan society and refugee camps are replicated and exacerbated in the asylum process.