Women's radio extends coverage

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.