How Taliban restrictions on women and media are crushing women journalists?
In late February, senior Taliban officials warned that they were contemplating a complete ban on women working or appearing in the media.
On February 27, Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, the Taliban minister of the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice, issued a warning to media representatives during a meeting in Kabul: The leader of the Taliban could completely ban women from working in the media if women do not cover their faces when they appear on television or in video interviews.
Though women in the media have been forced to wear niqabs or masks since May 2022, the new rules are even more restrictive. Hanafi, who plays a key role in planning and implementing anti-women policies of the Taliban, showed examples of how women should appear – the photos were of women covered from head to toe in black (no coloured robes were allowed) with their faces almost completely obscured with veils, leaving just their eyes visible.
The newest Taliban orders against women in the media have been even more harshly interpreted by local authorities. In particular, Zan Times heard from sources who say that local Taliban officials are imposing even harsher bans on women during their own meetings with local media organizations. Sometimes, those restrictions include banning the broadcast of women’s voices on radios as well as forbidding women from making calls to the media.
On February 24, even before Hanafi met with media executives in Kabul, the head of the Taliban Police in Khost province sent a letter to the province’s directorate of information and culture as well as that of vice and virtue. The letter expanded the Taliban’s ban on how women are seen and heard in the media: “In this province, some radio stations are promoting moral corruption; a good example of that is the broadcast of educational programs on radios, in which more girls participate; in these programs, in working and non-working time, the girls contact the officials of the radio stations and engage in illicit relations.” Worryingly, the letter specifically mentioned “educational programs,” which are probably the last option for girls to receive an education in Khost after the Taliban closed schools and universities to girls above the sixth grade.
Though the police chief is not responsible for imposing control or restrictions on the media, his order was immediately implemented. Journalists in Khost confirmed with Zan Times that the new restrictions have been put in effect. They also say that similar restrictions have been imposed in Paktia and Paktika provinces.
“The new situation is very serious and the Taliban no longer allow women and girls to contact the media,” says an official of a local radio station that broadcasts in Khost and Paktia provinces and who asked for anonymity. “This is a great problem for private media and will have a negative impact on the broadcasts and audience numbers.”
Referring to the recent restrictions, Freshta Hemmati, CEO of the Afghanistan Journalist Support Organization (AJSO), tells Zan Times that women journalists in Afghanistan “enter their workplaces every day with the fear of receiving yet another letter from the Taliban that prohibits them from continuing to work in the media.”
She adds that AJSO is deeply worried about the gradual increase of restrictions imposed by the Taliban on women journalists in Afghanistan: “For example, incidents in places like Khost province where even their security headquarters imposed media restrictions, reveal a lack of centralization and organization within their ranks. This decentralized approach underscores their disregard for media rules and professional standards, although we don’t anticipate them to abide by such principles.”
In a new report published in March 2024, AJSO states that there are no female journalists and media workers in 19 of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, and that 95 percent of media organizations do not employ women journalists. The handful of women journalists still working in Afghanistan face many restrictions.
According to this AJSO report, the direct and indirect restrictions imposed by the Taliban on women journalists have targeted their most basic rights, which include compulsory covering, wearing masks, restrictions on the method of talk, travel bans, severe gender segregation in Television programs and lack of access to information for female journalists and media workers have been mentioned. According to the report, women do not have the right to laugh or joke in media programs, while words such as pregnancy, birth, marriage, and divorce are banned.
In an online program marking International Women’s Day on March 8, a female journalist from Kabul said that some managers and media owners do not support women journalists, which adds to the restrictions imposed by the Taliban. “In November 2021, when I entered [the media organization she is working in], there were 20 female reporters, but now there are only three and the rest are men,” she said. “It is the same in most media.” She added that the lack of support shown to female journalists also exists within some of their families: “Families say, ‘Don’t go to the media, you might get into trouble, you might say something wrong. Don’t go so that you don’t cause controversy or get arrested.’ We can’t tell our family many daily problems, because they will increase our family’s further opposition to our work.”
The female journalists asked for journalists and media outside Afghanistan to support her fellow female journalists who are still in Afghanistan even as censorship spreads to all parts of the industry: “We stopped many programs that were related to women. Because we are not allowed to talk about women, we cannot talk about education for women and what women need.” She went on to say that the situation is causing mental and emotional distress for many female journalists:. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been suffocating,” she said. “Something is stuck in our throats and we can’t say anything.”
Fariba*, a female journalist in Kabul, tells Zan Times that the head of her media organization told women to either follow the Taliban’s instructions on how to dress or leave their jobs. Marwa*, a 31-year-old journalist in western Afghanistan, says that she has no choice but to follow the Taliban’s orders as she doesn’t want women to be banned from the media: “I am very worried because I have three children and my husband is unemployed and I am the breadwinner. If women are not allowed to work in the media, I don’t know what will happen to me and my family.”
Meanwhile, a female reporter in Ghor province tells Zan Times that female reporters are prohibited from working in the newsroom or reporting from the field. She says that a couple of female reporters can still work on health programs from their homes, where they do not have interactions with men.
While some women journalists are able to keep working, the increasing number of restrictions have forced at least a handful of others to leave their jobs. Farida* was a presenter on a social program in a local radio station in Herat. In the middle of last year, she was forced to leave her job after the Taliban applied pressure on her media organization. Farida says that the Taliban vice and virtue officials in Herat province asked the manager of her radio station to use men instead of female presenters. That had the effect of reducing her pay. “At first, my salary was 11,000 afghani, but with the restrictions of the Taliban, the head of the radio reduced my hours and my wage,” she tells Zan Times. “I could no longer continue with the low income and the increasing risks that could arise for me. I resigned in July 2023 and did not go to work in the media anymore.” Farida has been unemployed ever since.
A person working with organizations that support the media in Kabul tells Zan Times that their investigations show that women journalists are not allowed to work in the field. The man, who asked not to be named for security reasons, points out that many of the Taliban’s restrictions on the local media are conveyed orally. As media officials can be imprisoned or tortured for disobeying the Taliban’s orders.
In Kandahar province, the Taliban banned the broadcasting of women’s voices on the media last year. Now, the province, which is the headquarters of the Taliban leader, has also banned any video recording or photography of their forces or offices and buildings. In a letter dated February 17, Mullah Mohammad Shirin Akhund, the Taliban governor of Kandahar, stated, “In the future, in official and unofficial meetings, avoid taking photos and videos of the beings that have soul; issue written and audio reports of your activities with no pictures. This letter must be implemented in every office from its effective date.”
The Taliban’s censorship of what the media can show or cover also affects female audiences. Roya*, a 19-year-old young woman in Ghor province, used to enjoy listening to the radio. “I was listening to an educational program on the radio. The program stopped broadcasting,” she tells Zan Times. “We sent a message to the program’s voicemail number and inquired about the reason, but the people in charge of the program said that the Taliban had told them not to broadcast this program anymore. It made me sad and it was a hard blow to my soul because this program was our only hope in these difficult conditions and the instructors taught very well, and I was very saddened by the closure of this program.”
*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees and writer. Farshid Aram and Mahtab Safi are the pseudonyms of Zan Times journalists in Afghanistan.
