IRIN
AFGHANISTAN: Women's radio extends coverage
18 January 2005


[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United 
Nations]

KABUL, 18 January (IRIN) - Jamila Mujahid and her team were preparing to 
air programmes on the Voice of Afghan Women - a Kabul-based radio 
station that broadcasts to the capital and its five surrounding 
provinces.

The 11 female media professionals at the station said they see their 
work as very important. "Our main goal is to fight against the violence 
against women in this male-dominated society, illiteracy, forced 
marriages and the rule of the gun," Najiba Maram, deputy director of the 
station, told IRIN.

The women plan to produce not just programmes on health, education and 
women's rights, but also to tackle sensitive cultural issues such as 
divorce, forced marriages and honour killings. "We are addressing a very 
big audience in the five provinces. Women will find their own voices and 
their chosen topics," she noted.

There's also plenty of music on the station, as without entertainment 
you cannot attract an audience, she added. The pioneering station was 
launched in March 2003 with help from the United Nations Educational, 
Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). But because the aerial 
was too small and the FM transmitter too weak, only a small part of the 
city could tune in.

Now the German Development Service (DED) has provided a powerful new 
transmitter, allowing the station to reach hundreds of thousands of 
women in the key provinces near the capital. The station broadcasts for 
up to 11 hours per day.

Despite this aid, like many other local radio stations in Afghanistan, 
the Voice of Afghan Women still suffers from a lack of equipment and 
funding to sustain itself. "We have a tiny studio which is our newsroom 
and everything," Maram said.

"All the programmes have to be live as we don't have the possibility of 
pre-recording," station director Jamila Mujahid told IRIN. She said, 
because they addressed a particular audience, they currently had only a 
limited income from advertisements. "We hope that donors and also our 
Afghan businessmen will help us to serve the vulnerable Afghan women."

Jane McElhone, project director for the Institute for Media, Policy and 
Civil Society (IMPACS), which supports four women's radio stations in 
rural areas, said they gave women the opportunity to be journalists, 
producers, technicians, fundraisers and decision makers. "In assuming 
these roles, they learn new skills, develop greater self-confidence and 
awareness, and become active participants in their own communities."

Radio is now a growing part of daily life in rural Afghanistan. 
According to an international non-profit organisation that supports open 
media worldwide, Internews, almost 90 percent of people surveyed 
recently in the northern province of Parwan owned a radio set and a high 
percentage of them listened to it for more than two hours a day.

There are 47 radio stations broadcasting on AM and FM within 
Afghanistan. According to Sanjar Qiam, a radio network coordinator for 
Internews, 28 of these are independent stations, part of a network 
support by the media organisation, and 16 are state, regional and 
provincial radio stations.

In rural areas, radio is the only source of reliable and impartial 
information and thus the only effective defence against extremism, Qiam 
noted. He added that 96 percent of households in Afghanistan had no 
access to electricity and only a small number of people had access to 
print media and TV.


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 
2005


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