Afghan journalist features in Time’s women of the year for reporting women’s lives in Afghanistan

Afghan journalist Zahra Joya has been named as one of Time’s women of the year 2022. The journalist has been consistently reporting women’s lives in Afghanistan through her news agency, Rukhshana Media.

Ever since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, journalists have been concerned for their safety. There have also been reports of journalists being beaten up.

She launched Rukhshana Media in December 2020 with her own money. Her agency is Afghanistan’s first feminist news agency. The agency aims to become the first national news source where an Afghan woman could see her own life reflected in the stories published every day.

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Joya is currently living in the UK as a refugee. However, she still manages to run Rukhshana Media from exile. She has been publishing the reporting of her team of female journalists on life for women under Taliban rule.

Joya, in a report by The Guardian said, "Although it has never been easy to be a woman and a journalist in Afghanistan, now our reporting has been almost eradicated. The Taliban have forced female journalists to wear the hijab, banning them from appearing on screen or in public, or from broadcasting their voices on radio in some provinces, but this makes it even more important that our stories continue to be told.”

Joya was interviewed by Angelina Jolie for Time’s women of the year issue. "The first time the Taliban regime were in Afghanistan, I was a child. I wasn’t allowed to go to school. But I loved learning," the journalist said while speaking to Jolie.

Joya was just 5 years old when the Taliban took power in Afghanistan. The regime, at that time, also banned girls’ education.

Determine to learn, the five-year-old dressed in boys’ clothing and walked two hours to and from school every day.
It was only after the US invasion in 2001, that she dropped her disguise and enrolled as a law student.

(With inputs from agencies)