AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE (AFP)
“We have to show that we don’t need to be scared,” says 48-year-old Hamida Aman, the station’s founder.
From Taliban-controlled Kabul, Radio Begum is broadcasting the voices of women that have been muted across Afghanistan.
Station staff fill the airwaves with programming for women, by women: educational shows, book readings and call-in counselling.
For now, they operate with the permission of the hardline group who regained power in August and have limited the ability for women to work and girls to attend school.
“We’re not giving up,” pledged 48-year-old Hamida Aman, the station’s founder, who grew up in Switzerland after her family fled Afghanistan a few years after the Soviet Union invaded.
“We have to show that we don’t need to be scared,” said Aman, who returned after the ousting of the Taliban’s first regime in 2001 by US-led foreign forces.
“We must occupy the public sphere.”
‘Vessel for voices’
The station was founded on March 8, International Women’s Day, this year, five months before the Taliban marched into Kabul and finalised their defeat of the US-backed government.
From a working-class neighbourhood, it continues to broadcast across Kabul and surrounding areas — and live on Facebook.
“Begum” was a noble title used in South Asia, and it now generally refers to a married Muslim woman.
“This station is a vessel for women’s voices, their pain, their frustrations,” Aman said.
The Taliban granted permission for the broadcaster to stay on the airwaves in September, albeit with new curbs.
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