By Peggy Simpson
Early on, as a teenager, Farida Nekzad wanted to be a reporter so she could be “a window for other women” in Afghanistan. She’s been that, and more.
In high school in Kabul, before the Taliban came to power, she worked on school papers and volunteered for different publications. She knew only one reporter, a neighbor, who encouraged the teenage Nekzad to try her hand at reporting.
It wasn’t that easy. When the Taliban took over, Nekzad had to withdraw from studying journalism at Kabul University when her family took refuge in Pakistan in 1996. She was 20. She taught in private Pakistani schools, supervised basic education programs for Afghan refugees and helped with Afghan Culture groups in Peshawar. She continued to study journalism at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication Institute in New Delhi and began writing poetry and freelance articles for both Afghan and Pakistani publications.
Nekzad soaked up articles about women struggling for their rights. Under the Taliban, women had been squeezed out of nearly all visible roles in society. When they were out of their houses, they were cloaked in burkas. When Nekzad returned to Afghanistan with her family in late 2001, she saw with some disbelief that women once again were working and walking in public without burkas. She also saw women going into journalism.
“It was a great strength for me,” she said, referring both to the ability of women to wear what they wanted and to be active again in public life. She took advantage of that freedom to report, edit and do media training with other Afghans.
At first, Nekzad freelanced for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting. She then worked for a year at AINA radio, part of the AINA cultural center, as a talk show presenter, reporter and editor on issues ranging from sports to women’s issues and politics. She also began freelancing for the Effat monthly magazine, which was aimed at women. By April 2003, she had moved to reporting about politics, women’s rights and the reconstruction of Afghanistan. She also began freelancing for The New York Times, BBC and Voice of America. By the fall of 2003, she began working part time for IWPR as an editor and trainer. At the Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society (IMPACS), she put on workshops in Kabul and the provinces especially for women. The radio programs she produced included several on how women would live in the new Afghan society.
In the decade she has worked as a journalist, after returning to Afghanistan, Nekzad has never veered from her goal of encouraging Afghan women to write and “to encourage them [to push] for their rights.”
Her work for IWPR led to creation of Pajhwok Afghan News. With a half dozen colleagues, they looked at the many good feature stories written by IWPR participants, especially the women, and began to look for outlets that would publish them. They decided to do it themselves. “There was no independent news agency, and we thought we should start one and then could publish all these materials from workshops, from Kabul and from the provinces,” she said.
It was 2004, and Nekzad was 29. The Kabul-based Pajhwok Afghan News is published in Dari, Pashto and English. Pajhwok translates into “Echo” in English. The agency has 35 reporters and photographers, including eight women.
The news agency has roiled the political waters with the stories they have carried. This is especially true when the stories concern Afghan warlords or provincial power brokers – or when the stories deal with new restrictions on women and a resurgence of violence against women. One controversial story was about a warlord exchanging his dog for a young girl. “When one of our regional reporters wrote this news, [the warlord and his aides] warned him ‘to write that [the story] was not correct. Apologize, otherwise we will kill you.’ ”
“For the last year, the situation is worse for women, especially outside of Kabul,” said Nekzad. “There are no rights for women. There are many instances of violence.” She added that powerful people back up their threats with guns. “And they don’t like women to be journalists. It’s a big problem.”
In June 2007, a gang murdered independent radio journalist Zakia Zaki, breaking into her house and gunning her down in front of her children. She had started Sada-e-Salh (Peace Radio) in 2001 and was a charismatic media figure in the country. After Nekzad went to her funeral, she received telephone and e-mail death threats promising she would suffer the same fate if she persisted in her reporting. The expression that anonymous callers used was that Nekzad was a “daughter of America.”
Nekzad said this “accusation” had little to do with the U.S. government’s support of women’s rights in Afghanistan or her own promotion of women’s equality. It is more insidious. The warlords “think that you are working for America because you are getting a salary (working outside the home). They are making that linkage.”
She said the central government didn’t take the threats against her seriously until she showed the e-mails to international journalists, who then reported on the threats. “There is no security for women here,” she said. But she said when she alerted foreign correspondents about the threats against her, and they asked questions about this to the government, it put the government on notice that outsiders were watching. “The international community can bring pressure on the government of Afghanistan, especially on security issues facing women.”
She hasn’t let the threats stop her. Although she doesn’t have guards to protect her, on occasion she and her driver use a different car, take different routes at different times, while someone else drives her normal route with her usual car. After Zaki was murdered, Nekzad said she realized that the government was weak, the warlords “have the power and can do anything” and one of the few sources of leverage is the international community.
Nekzad turns down Western overtures to take a break abroad. “I’m thinking about myself but also I am thinking about the future of Afghanistan. There is no presence of women in journalism. This is [a] man’s country. And I want to defend [women’s] rights. I’m frightened but I continue in my job and my life.”
She is sobered by the knowledge that it is not just the warlords who hold restricted views of what women can do. Some rank-and-file Afghans also are conflicted about the role of women in society today. “Some families don’t accept that women can make some plans for [themselves], can run the economy. This is a problem,” she said. People fear what women will do if they earn money and gain more independence from traditional family controls.
Nekzad is thrilled to receive the IWMF Courage in Journalism Award. She isn’t sure she should be called courageous, but admits she persists in “working under duress” in increasingly hazardous conditions. She also said that other Afghan women share her gratitude for the award. “The Afghan people, especially the women, become hopeful that at least some people [in international organizations] understand our work and how we are under threat … and know how hard we are working in a very bad situation.”
Still, she can’t ignore Afghanistan’s worsening security situation and what it means for her future. She relishes her management and leadership roles. In addition to her day job, she is burnishing those skills by taking business administration courses from Miriam University. But she can’t ignore the barriers that may loom ahead. “I see two options. One is very bright, one very dark. The bright one means more progress, more promotion and more power. But the dark one means no security and maybe restrictions on my work and my mentality and I am afraid this will influence my own professional life.”
Peggy Simpson is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.