AFGHANISTAN: New Center Increases Opportunities for Afghan Female Journalists

While the use of Afghanistan and journalism in one word usually evokes negative images such as abducted reporters and war coverage, three Afghan women have taken a step to improve the media situation in Afghanistan, by setting up a Women's Journalism Center to help build female journalists' careers.

The center's significance comes further into focus when taking into account the fact that between 1996 and 2001 women were not allowed to hold jobs or attend universities. "We decided to start this center in order to encourage females who spent four years studying journalism in school," Fawzia Fakhri, director of the center told Seeta, of the Afghan Women's Writing Project. A majority of the approximately twenty female journalists who graduate every year become teachers for lack of better choices, Fakhri further explained.

Seeta reminds us that "being a woman journalist in Afghanistan can be extremely dangerous. Women who venture into that field routinely face harassment and threats, and have sometimes been killed. The dangers have resulted in fewer women studying to become journalists." These dangers are not exclusive to females, according to a Reuters report in 2009, the EU expressed concern about "growing intimidation and violence targeting Afghan journalists and media professionals."

Apart from improving female journalists' careers by providing practical courses and helping with job placements, the center will also serve as a haven for these journalists. "It is very important for me that women feel comfortable coming here, and that they can use the Internet in a feminine space," Fakhri said. "There have, in the past, been three journalism centers but I never went to the meetings because they never invited women. This is the place for women journalists." The haven aspect of the center is necessary since most female journalists in Afghanistan are writing under aliases, and without the knowledge of their families.

The Afghan Women's Writing Project focuses on this and affords these women the opportunity to keep writing; "allowing Afghan women to have a direct voice in the world, not filtered through male relatives or members of the media."