‘Everything collapsed. But I still have hope’: Women journalists speak out
This is the story of Afghan women journalists who refused to let their voices go silent under Taliban rule even when media stations shut down, salaries cut, and their colleagues disappeared. During the last four years, Afghanistan’s women journalists have faced waves of repression, threats, bans, and censorship. Some refuse to stop. Determined to remain the voices of the people, they continue to work from inside their homes, using pseudonyms, and in the shadows of fear.
Samira was 23 years old when her journalist sister was murdered. Her sister had been her role model — Samira had grown up listening to her voice on the radio. Even though her sister had been killed before the Taliban takeover in 2021, Samira and her family were still forced to flee Kabul due to death threats and seek refuge in a southern province of Afghanistan.
She tells Zan Times, “Even before the Taliban takeover, I never truly felt safe. But the desire to continue my sister’s unfinished path in journalism was always alive in my heart.” Her family didn’t want to lose another daughter, but eventually she gained their approval and began working at a local radio station.
Since her very first day, Samira has worked presenting and producing programs. “I didn’t work for money,” she says. “I was chasing my sister’s dreams. When my family saw me working, they felt like they hadn’t completely lost.” The radio director eventually offered Samira her dream: full management of the station.
That dream was shattered after Kabul fell to the Taliban. In April 2022, the Taliban’s vice and virtue ministry ordered female TV presenters to cover their faces. Since then, women broadcasters have been veiled as they delivered news, social, and religious programs.
Samira continued her work at the radio station, though she recorded and edited most of her programs from home. She produced shows focused on women’s health, maternal care, and family issues. Then, salaries dropped for female employees. Later came a warning: no one would help if she was threatened or arrested.
Samira pressed on until the Taliban completely banned women’s voices on the radio. Her work came to a halt. “That day, I broke,” she says. “Everything collapsed. But I still have hope … I’m still waiting for the day my voice will be heard again.”
On March 9, 2024, industry advocates reported that not a single female journalist remains officially active in 19 out of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. In one central province, Humaira remains the only working female journalist. Despite the closure of several radio stations and the dismissal of many colleagues, she continues her reporting.
She often faces non-cooperation from officials and struggles to get access to information, sometimes waiting weeks for a response. “I spent months trying to get an interview with a Taliban official,” she says. “They told me I needed to bring a male guardian. I waited there all day, but in the end, they refused to talk.”
In December 2024, the Afghanistan Journalists Support Organization published a report stating that women journalists face significant challenges in accessing information. The report noted: “Women journalists cited gender discrimination (38%) and fear of exposing the truth (33%) as the main reasons why the Taliban authorities withhold information from them.”
Rohafza, 22, is a presenter at one of the most listened-to radio stations in Kabul. She knows that each day could be her last on the job, which is the only source of income for her and her family, who have no male guardian. “The year 2024 was the most difficult year of my career,” she says. “Despite all the risks, I show up at the studio every day from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. After the enactment of the vice and virtue law, all entertainment and cultural programs were cut, and many staff members lost their jobs. As radio revenues declined, salaries were reduced. My female colleagues and I are constantly worried about losing our jobs. It’s a private radio station, but we still have to follow Taliban policies. Even the slightest mistake could shut us down.”
“In a country where women are banned from work and education, parks are closed, and entertainment programs have disappeared from TV, radio is the only connection women — especially in rural areas — have with the outside world,” she explains. “We have a program where female teachers record school lessons as podcasts and send them to us for broadcast. The program has more than one million listeners.”
Rohafza tries to keep hope alive in the hearts of young Afghan girls who listen to her shows. She talks to a wide range of women — teachers, shop owners selling hijabs, tailors, jewelers, and small business owners — who have found ways to move forward despite being confined at home or denied education. “I invite these women to speak so they can inspire the girls who are barred from school and the women forced to stay home. We ask successful women to share their stories,” Rohafza recounts.
Since April 2024, she says that the Taliban’s intelligence agency has sent letters to the radio management, prompting the director to email staff, warning them to watch what they say and how they behave, or risk losing their programs. “The intelligence agency writes things like: ‘At 11 a.m. on Monday, we listened to your station, and the following content must be corrected.’ That allows them to identify exactly which show aired and which colleague was involved. The letter warns us that any further violations will result in more serious consequences,” she explains.
On August 21, 2024, the Taliban’s Ministry of Justice officially enacted the Law on Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice based on the decrees of Mullah Hibatullah. This is the clearest and most comprehensive directive the Taliban have issued regarding the media. According to the law, the role of the muhtasib (enforcer of virtue) is to compel media managers to prevent the publication of any content deemed contrary to Islamic law and doctrine. The law also bans the publication of images depicting living beings. Article 10 explicitly mentions women’s voices and music in public spaces, requiring the muhtasib to suppress them. Most strikingly, Article 13, Section 3 of the law states: “A woman’s voice (singing aloud, chanting religious hymns, or public recitations) is considered ‘awrah’”—a concept referring to parts of the body that must be covered or hidden. Notably, such an interpretation does not exist in original Islamic texts.
Somaya, 28, a mother of two and a health program presenter in a central province, says, “When this law was ratified, many female radio employees feared losing their jobs because the idea of the female voice being considered ‘awrah’ mainly targets women like us who work as radio presenters.”
Media managers, in collaboration with the Taliban or out of extreme caution, also exclude women from workplaces by denying women physical access to their jobs. There are eight women working at Somaya’s radio station, but to avoid having any women at the office, the director ordered them to work from home. “Our director is overly cautious,” Somaya explains. “He says sometimes Taliban members enter the station unexpectedly, and it’s better if no women are seen there.”
Somaya now records her programs at home and sends them to the station. In her interview with Zan Times, she expressed concern: “Even giving this interview could get us identified. Please don’t mention our city or province.”
While the intensity of repression varies across Afghanistan, women journalists share a hope that refuses to die despite everything.
Aisha, 23, lives in a northeastern province and works as a reporter for an online newspaper that can only be accessed through VPNs inside Afghanistan. “Telling the truth under Taliban rule leads to prison or death,” she says. “We all work under pseudonyms and hidden identities. Censorship has become so pervasive that I don’t even know who my own colleagues are. We are all afraid. Besides the editor-in-chief and a few colleagues abroad, I don’t know anyone’s name or location.”
If the northeast is shrouded in such darkness that even naming the province feels risky, Herat still has a dim flicker of light as the vice and virtue law has not yet been implemented. Still, the shadows of the Taliban loom heavy there, too. Tamanna, who works with several news agencies, says, “Local officials and media owners have remained silent about enforcing the law, but still, the space for women journalists has shrunk drastically. In 2024, when the grape festival was held in Herat, women journalists were officially allowed to cover the event. But when we arrived on the day, we were told to wait until the crowd dispersed. Of course, by then the event was over, and there was nothing left to report.”
Tamanna, Somaya, Rohafza, and other Afghan women journalists have shown over the past four years that they won’t wait for Taliban permission to report. For the Taliban, a woman’s voice is awrah—a thing to be hidden.
For Afghan women journalists, that voice is a bastion of freedom.
The names in this article have been changed to protect their security. Khadija Haidary is Zan Times journalist.
