The UN Women’s Division has announced that 80% of female journalists in Afghanistan have been forced to leave their jobs due to restrictions, harassment, and fear. The organization stated its support for female journalists striving for women’s rights and gender equality.
The UN Women’s Division released this message on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day on May 3rd.
The UN Women’s Division wrote on its social media platform X, “On World Press Freedom Day and every other day, we stand with media initiatives and female journalists.”
The organization shared a message from an Afghan female journalist who said, “I wanted to continue my work. But it wasn’t long before I was pursued and received threatening messages warning of my death.”
The Afghanistan Journalists Center announced on Thursday that since the Taliban came to power in August 2021, they have issued at least 17 directives.
Restrictions such as banning women from working in national radio and television, prohibiting coverage of protests and civil unrest, mandating referring to the Taliban as the Afghan government, banning music broadcasts, mandating female journalists to cover their faces, prohibiting women’s participation in media entertainment programs, separating the roles of men and women in the media, and banning interviews between women and men are among the restrictions imposed by the Taliban, according to the Afghanistan Journalists Center.
Meanwhile, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reported in its latest classification of the status of media freedom in the world that among 180 countries, Afghanistan is recognized as one of the most dangerous countries for journalism and has dropped from rank 152 to 178.
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