Breaking the bias in Afghanistan: A radio station for women returns to the airwaves
Mursal Abrar
Humanitarian project manager, ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action Afghanistan
I vividly remember the month of September 2021. After the collapse of the former government, I was receiving numerous calls and invitations from different humanitarian coordination teams, asking me to participate in meetings and raise the concerns of female aid workers on the ground.
To gather information, I attempted several calls to reach out to women who were working in humanitarian aid in many provinces. But I couldn’t reach them. The majority of them had already left the country, and others were caged at home due to their fear of persecution.
The challenge intensified when reports started going around that Taliban regulations prohibited most women from operating as aid workers. These severe restrictions were preventing urgently needed lifesaving aid and information from reaching Afghans, especially women, girls, and women-headed households.
The whole situation made me believe that Afghanistan would go back to where it was 20 years ago. I believed women would succumb to the Taliban’s expectations and eventually get caged again.
A ray of hope
But this time, amid all the uncertainties, fear, and despair, there are women who are emerging stronger than ever before. These women are a ray of hope, amid all the despair, and are reviving hope among other women in the country.
Shola Darwesh Yousufi is one such example.
Born in Faizabad city, in Badakhshan province in Afghanistan. Shola is a presenter and communications and publications officer at the radio station Hareem Zan in Badakhshan – a radio station run for women, by women. In the current context in Afghanistan, where women are often not permitted to work nor older girls to attend school, it is a rare example of a success story for women.
In an interview, she told me: “I want to be the voice for Afghan women, and strive for women’s voices not to be silenced in society, and thrive. I want to be the symbol of equality, and as a media personality and a woman, raise their voices and empower and inspire them.”
Hareem Zan is a ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action partner, broadcasting ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action content and receiving training and mentoring. But after the Taliban came to power, the radio station shut down, and they were at first afraid to try to start again, Shola said.
“There was extreme fear and uncertainty among women and everyone had lost their motivation, there was no hope that there would be any media activity.”
But they relaunched after six long months of pause, with the goal of reviving hope among women, breaking the silence in the city and proving that they are still here to deliver their services.
“The difference between then and now is like the difference between sky and Earth,” Shola said. “But if I say these changes are difficult for me to accept, I would be wrong, because even during the former government, we used to be very cautious.”
Shola Darwesh Yousufi is a presenter at Radio Hareem Zan in the remote Badakhshan province of Afghanistan. She explains their work - for women, by women. Clip by ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action Afghanistan.
Engaging women and increasing their knowledge
Though they no longer create pure entertainment programmes, Hareem Zan is back delivering a variety of social, political, cultural, and informative programmes across the province. Their women-centric content makes it easy for women to contact them to ask questions and fill in any gaps in their information. Their programmes engage with female audiences, increases their level of knowledge and empowers them to cope with existing challenges. Their programmes also suggest approaches on how to tackle challenges in their daily lives, looking at them from different social perspectives.
ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action is still working with local media partners like Hareem Zan, providing mentoring and advice. We are also running Lifeline training to make sure journalists know what their audiences need is in a time of crisis – including how to access humanitarian aid and medical care.
We have continued to reflect the information needs of women through one of our health programmes. In the first days and weeks after the fall of Kabul and when medical services were collapsing, we conducted rapid research that found that 62% of people wanted information about mental health. Some 43% of them were women. ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action’s ‘Where There is No Doctor’ programme connected people, especially women, directly with medical professionals, and provided information and support around both physical and mental health. Information ranged from how to recognise and respond to a panic attack, to how to care for yourself in early pregnancy.
Our radio programmes now also get questions from across the country about how to access humanitarian aid – how to register, what happens if someone is registered but not receiving aid, who can I count as part of my family, what if I need more than just wheat and oil? We also support people to provide feedback in a way that doesn’t involve leaving the house to drop a card in a collection box, which many women may feel is unsafe.
A worsening humanitarian crisis
The situation in Afghanistan is devastating and rapidly worsening. Violent conflict, a devastating drought, and food insecurity affecting over half the population in Afghanistan are driving one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. The current situation and crises have created an enormous information gap for women when it comes to accessing to services.
This is why media and communication are playing an even more essential role in Afghanistan now – unlike other humanitarian efforts, which rely on face-to-face contact, women can get information, participate in surveys, make complaints and give feedback through radio and mobile phones.
At a time when women are not permitted to travel long distances without a male relative, it has become more challenging to make sure we are seeking out their opinions and understanding their needs. We continue to conduct research through mobile phones, so that we can reach women across the country at home, rather than sending someone door-to-door who may only be able to speak to male members of the household.
Our aid is communication
Our aid is communication, and this is our strength – through radio, television, mobile phones and social media, we are able to reach everyone, especially if they aren’t able to go out to seek information on their own. Radio is so popular here that it has an almost magical power to reach everyone - wherever they are and whatever they are doing. Media and communication have become even more powerful tools for aid.
With programmes across ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Dari and Pashto services and across 35 local radio stations – including Hareem Zan - we continue to deliver important information, connect people with experts and with each other, and inspire new ideas.
Mursal Abrar is our Afghanistan humanitarian project manager, now based in London. This article was written with support from Auliya Atrafi, senior content producer in Kabul.