Going from telling the news to being the news was the beginning of a process fraught with anguish for Khadija Amin, a 28-year-old journalist and Afghan refugee who arrived in Spain on 23 August. He currently resides in Salamanca, where he managed to continue his journalism studies: “Being able to return to university fills me with hope, makes me see the light in the midst of so much uncertainty, it has always been my dream to be a journalist and see that I can continue this path here it eases my pain a little ”. Since he arrived, he says, he looks in the mirror and is surprised because he does not recognize himself.
He is trying to start over despite the constant memories of a broken life in his native country, since the Taliban entered Kabul on August 15 and took control of Afghanistan. “My day to day in Spain is fine and I have great faith in everything I can do for my people, but I find it unbearable to be so far from my own,” he says. A smile is drawn on her face when she tells how well she feels welcomed by Spanish society, she makes friends every day and this helps her not to feel alone. “I cannot express my pain to my mother, she suffers for me, but in Salamanca I have many friends who listen to me,” he clarifies with some satisfaction.
Now his routine focuses on classes and participating in events and conferences so that the situation in his country does not fall into oblivion. She is in a limbo between the hope for what is coming and the sadness of not being able to have her children close, not even being able to contact them. “The problem is not just being Afghan, but also being a woman.”
His gaze does not hide the impotence of a mother betrayed by the father of her children. She had the tickets and the safe-conduct ready, but her husband refused to get on the plane and neither did he allow Amin’s three sons to do so. She shows her photos, one is eight years old and the other two are twins of four. “Hopefully one day I can see them and tell them what happened,” he collapses.
She carries the burden of being a woman in her country: she was married when she turned 18 in a marriage of convenience. Her husband chose her father. “I was at home for six years doing nothing, just attending to my husband and the needs of the house.” She says that she suddenly realized that she could be much more than a housewife. That’s when he decided to train in journalism and became the face of the news on Afghan public television (RTA).
Before this interview, Amin was able to present the situation of the press in Afghanistan in a round table framed in theReporters Without Borders Week (RSF) in Nebrija: Journalism threatened. Unable to focus on his personal testimony, he always speaks in the plural and takes every opportunity to remind informants that they were unable to flee Afghanistan.
When Kabul was left in the hands of the insurgents, after the fall of President Ashraf Ghani, he remembers that the RTA told him that women had to go home. “After three days without work, I went to ask the new Taliban head of Afghan public television and he told me: ‘You are not authorized, women will not be able to work in the public media.’ So I decided to report it and not shut up, ”he says.
The first thing they did, says Amín, was to change management positions and expel women from the workforce. According Reporters Without BordersUntil the arrival of the Taliban, there were about 700 women journalists and now there are less than 100. The image of Amin sitting on the set presenting the news in front of another of a Taliban presenter replacing her It was iconic and her mother begged her to leave the country.
Khadija Amin the new anchor on state TV last week.
Taliban taking over her seat as of Monday.
Ms. Amin told us her boss informed her Taliban have banned women from returning to work at state television.#Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/S4BfISKkaG– Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) August 17, 2021
RSF did not take long to verify his case, there was clear evidence that his life was in danger. He obtained a safe-conduct to leave in one of the Spanish evacuation planes that landed on August 23 in Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid). Amin is one of the 2,400 people who have arrived in Spain during evacuation operations, according to data from Moncloa.
Journalism as an empowerment tool
“I decided to study journalism because it allowed me to denounce the situation of women. I loved reporting on the rights of the female population. It made me uneasy to see how we were unaware of our rights and, through television, I could give them visibility, ”she says. Her dream paid off and she became a reference for the youngest girls.
Women’s rights in Afghanistan have always been deeply divided and conflictive. Since the beginning of the 21st century, Afghan women have been mobilizing for more freedom and equality. But, over the years, efforts to improve their situation have been in vain, counted on by those who have insisted on pushing them back. Amin emphasizes the experience of 20 years ago and insists that the Taliban have not changed. He demands the help of foreign journalists and the international community to demand that they respect human rights in his country.
Before a large audience of journalism students, he recalled that “in one day nine journalists were killed in Afghanistan in a Taliban attack.” He complains that freedom of the press no longer exists: “Since the Taliban have taken power, they only want television to say positive things, not the reality of what is happening.”
Since the Taliban controlled the media, at least 30 cases of violence and harassment of journalists have been recorded. 70% of reporters have stopped working and many others are threatened. Printed newspapers are extinct. In the newsrooms of radios and televisions fear is breathed. Amin regrets that there are information professionals unaccounted for and many who are in hiding: “Every day I receive messages and calls from hidden colleagues asking me for help to get out. It is very painful”.
Afghanistan has become a much bleaker place. He is very angry to think that young women will be unable to continue their studies and that university students will not be able to return to class. “I see a very dark future for the women of my country. We have fought so much … And now we are back at a dead end ”. He fears that the inability to manage and the inexperience of the Taliban will once again plunge into chaos a country that cannot raise its head.
“The main victims of poverty will be women and girls,” he reflects. In addition, the arrival of the Taliban will mean a setback in everything they have achieved in terms of rights. According to the latest report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Afghanistan is the second country in the world with the highest maternal mortality rates. Every day 900 boys and girls under the age of five die. Life will be difficult, especially for young women who, in their desire to learn and seek new opportunities, face daily threats, difficulties and challenges. And, despite knowing it, the international community has left the Afghan population alone, he denounces.
Amin managed to get away from this hostile evolution, but every day he wakes up with an emptiness: “I lost my family, I lost my children, I lost my identity. I lost everything, I only have my voice ”. One that you don’t want to turn off. He wants to be the loudspeaker, from a distance, of those whom the Taliban are determined to silence. Above all, of them because without female reporters there cannot be plural and egalitarian information in Afghanistan. And as she says: “Journalists are the voice of freedom.”
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