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From Taliban-controlled Kabul, Radio Begum is broadcasting the voices of women who have been silent throughout Afghanistan.
Station staff fill the waves with women’s programming, led by women: educational shows, book readings, and call counseling.
For now, they’re working on it Taliban consent which regained power in August and limited women’s ability to work and girls to attend school.
“We don’t give up,” said 48-year-old stationmaster Hamida Aman, who grew up in Switzerland after fleeing her family from Afghanistan a few years after the Soviet Union invaded.
“We need to show that we should not be afraid,” said Aman, who returned after US-led foreign forces overthrew the Taliban’s first regime in 2001.
“We have to occupy the public space.”
Voicebox
The station was founded on March 8, International Women’s Day, this year, five months before the Taliban moved to Kabul and ended the defeat of the US-backed government.
From a working-class neighborhood, it continues to broadcast throughout and around Kabul, and live on Facebook.
“Begum” was a noble title used in South Asia, and now refers to a generally married Muslim woman.
“This station is a vessel for women’s voices, their pain. their frustrations“Aman said.
Saba Chaman, director of Radio Begum, on the right, with his colleague [Hector Retamal/AFP]The Taliban gave the broadcaster permission to stay on the airwaves in September, albeit with new restrictions.
About 10 employees of Radio Begum shared an office with male colleagues working on a youth radio station.
They are now separated. Each gender has its own floor and a large opaque curtain has been placed in front of the women’s office.
Pop music has been replaced with traditional songs and “quieter music,” Aman said.
However, staff said it was a “privilege” to work at the station, with many female government staff banned from returning to office.
The Taliban has not yet formalized many of its policies, and has left gaps in how it implements groups across the country. Most of the public high schools for girls have been closed since they took over.
But twice a day, the radio studio looks like a classroom.
Hamida Aman, left, talking to students before starting a radio class [Hector Retamal/AFP]When the AFP news agency visited, six girls and three boys – all 13 or 14 years old – examined their books while the presenter was giving a lesson on social justice.
“Social justice is against the extreme,” said the 19-year-old teacher, a journalism student until a few months ago.
‘Golden opportunity’
Mursal, a 13-year-old girl, has gone to the studio to study since the Taliban prevented some secondary schools from reopening.
“My message to girls who can’t go to school is to listen carefully to our program, to use this golden opportunity and this opportunity,” she said. “Maybe they won’t have it again.”
There are also adult air courses. In one such lesson, 24-year-old station manager Saba Chaman read an autobiography of Michelle Obama in Dari. She is especially proud of the show, which requires psychological counseling from the audience.
In 2016, only 18 percent of Afghan women were literate compared to 62 percent of men, according to the former education ministry.
“Women who are illiterate are like blind people,” said a woman who can’t read in the air. “They give me an expired medication when I go to the pharmacy. If they read it, they wouldn’t do it. ‘
A few months after the Taliban took power, Aman Zabihullah Mujahid met with spokesman and told the radio that he was “working to give women a voice.” It was “very gratifying,” he said.
In September, Tolo News became the country’s largest independent television station reported More than 150 outlets were closed due to cuts and economic problems.
Radio Begum no longer receives advertising revenue.
If no money is received within three months, the voices of these women will disappear from the waves of Afghanistan, Chaman said.
“The only reason I hope for the moment is to know that I am doing something important in my life to help Afghan women.”
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