If there’s anything that the rise of political fundamentalisms in different contexts worldwide has taught us, it is that women’s rights are fragile. Almost overnight, the curtain is rapidly falling on Afghan women’s exercise of their right to freedom of expression through media that had expanded since 2001.

Ruchi Kumar’s research for the Global Alliance on Gender and Media (GAMAG) found that in 2020, more than 300 women had fled or been forced out of an already small community of female journalists. By August 2021 when the Taliban took control of the country, less than 15% remained. (1) Whether they had spoken out against the Taliban’s harsh treatment of women or reported about relatively apolitical topics such as culture, entertainment and the arts, all women journalists and their families are at risk.

GMMP research found that women were 21% of the subjects and sources in Afghan news content (not far behind the global average) and reported 29% of the stories. (2)  Four out of 10 of the women journalists reported on crime and violence, 18% on politics and another 18% on the economy. 42% of sources in stories by women journalists were female, compared to 26% in stories by men journalists. Almost 50% of stories by women reporters clearly challenged gender stereotypes compared to just 13% of those by men reporters.

The data are evidence that not only were women journalists responsible for creating space for girls and women to be heard, they also raised the quality of Afghan news content from a gender lens perspective. This is what stands to be lost if the clock is turned back on women’s rights to the pre-2001 Taliban regime years.

The international community has an obligation to stand in solidarity with the girls and women, especially those working in journalism and media. The toolkit for action may be sparse but what is clear is this: resources and support of the journalists to continue working wherever they are, in exile or within Afghanistan, are urgent.

Resources

• Emergency resources for Afghan women journalists curated by the Global Alliance on Gender and Media (GAMAG) (link URL https://gamag.net/2021/08/18/urgent-resources-repository/)
• International Centre for Journalists: How to support Afghan journalists (link URL https://www.icfj.org/news/how-support-afghan-journalists)

Further reading

• Rukhshana Media: Sharing women voices through women reporting (link URLs @Rukhshana https://twitter.com/rukhshanamedia?lang=en | www.rukhshana.com)
• Women Report Afghanistan (link URL https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/series/women-report-afghanistan) series by Rukhshana Media in The Guardian UK
• Statement by the Global Alliance on Media and Gender (link URL https://gamag.net/2021/08/16/gamag-urgently-calls-to-save-women-journalists-in-afghanistan/)

Notes

• Afghanistan: fewer than 100 out of 700 female journalists still working (link URL https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/01/afghanistan-only-handful-of-female-journalists-still-working
• Global Media Monitoring Project 2015 (link URL https://whomakesthenews.org/wp-content/uploads/who-makes-the-news/Imported/reports_2015/global/gmmp_global_report_en.pdf)

Photo: Derek Brumby/Shutterstock

It has led to wholesale urgent calls to assist Afghans – particularly women, journalists, and those who have worked for or aided humanitarian aid organisations and military – to flee the country or to be protected if they choose to remain. See for instance, Global Alliance on Media and Gender’s urgent call on the United Nations take urgent action to protect women journalists seeking to leave or remain in Afghanistan

The crisis also lays bare the digital media conundrum – is it a human rights blessing or curse?

In his recent opinion piece for The New York Times, Thomas Friedman, says there is hope that through digital communication, the Taliban can be held to account:

“When the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, iPhones, Facebook and Twitter didn’t even exist. Flash forward to today: Afghanistan is not only much more connected to the world, but it’s connected internally as well. It will not be nearly as easy for the Taliban to hide their abuses from the world or from fellow Afghans.

In 2001, virtually no one in Afghanistan owned a mobile phone. Today, more than 70 percent of Afghans do, and many of them have internet-enabled smartphones. While there is nothing inherently liberalizing about owning a phone, according to a 2017 study by Internews, Afghanistan’s social media ‘is already propagating change as it has become a platform for denouncing cases of corruption and injustice, bringing attention to causes that have not yet been addressed on traditional media and seemingly letting any social media user voice a public opinion.’

Maybe the Taliban will just shut it all down. And maybe they won’t be able to.”

But there is also evidence that the Taliban is already using digital accounts and the data held by government and NGOs to track down those they consider “collaborators”, and guides to help individuals delete their digital history and increase the security of their devices is also being shared [[]]

The future of Afghanistan is grim, but in the words of Malala:

“We will have time to debate what went wrong in the war in Afghanistan, but in this critical moment we must listen to the voices of Afghan women and girls. They are asking for protection, for education, for the freedom and the future they were promised. We cannot continue to fail them.”

We cannot let the abuses of any government or powerful group stay in the shadows. This is the essence of our communication rights – and our responsibility.

Photo: Ottawa, Canada. August 14th, 2021. End War in Afghanistan protest from local diaspora, asking the West to stand up to the Taliban. Image: Meandering Images/Shutterstock