Amazing Afghan Women
January 28th, 2005

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN: Mehrya sets up her video
camera ready to go out and shoot in Kabul
(photo right), 16 November 2003.
(SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images)

Afghan women are making inroads in Afghanistan’s business environment. Women for Afghan Women (“WAW”) and the Business Council for Peace (“Bpeace”) are actively promoting, under a program called “The Style Road Trip,” entrepreneurship and business skills to Afghan women.

Laurie Chock, owner of New York’s Chock Communications, said, “I’m working on a documentary about Afghanistani women, mentored under a project initiated by WAW and Bpeace, and funded by the U.S. State Department. We will bring close to 12 women who have embroidery and sewing businesses in May of this year to New York. They will be trained in business skills and introduced to leaders of the fashion industry. I have interviewed in June of 2004 potential candidates for this program and used Mehria Azizi, a young Afghan camerawoman, as my camerawoman. I hope to bring Mehria along with the group of women to the U.S. to do the shooting. Mehria is a spectacular young woman in her 20s who was featured both in the New York Times article “Chronicling the History of Their Afghan Sisters” and in the film Afghanistan Unveiled. Mehria is a very spirited and energetic journalist who even challenged the men about the white burqa.”
 

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN- An Afghan woman makes a dress for a female doll at the Kabul Dolls factory. The Dolls factory is a women-run enterprise, most of the employees whom are widows (photo left). (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

Brigitte Brault, a Media Project Manager for the French Foreign Ministry and a writer and video journalist for France Television, and Shaista Wahab, with funds from the Afghan Media and Culture Center (“AINA”) in Kabul, trained 14 young women filmmakers, featured in Afghanistan Unveiled. These women included Mehria Azizi, a 20-year-old high school teacher and employee at Kabul TV; Shekeba Adill, a high school student and part-time employee at Kabul TV involved in children’s programming; and Jamila Emami, a 19-year-old. Five of the original group are now employed by AINA in the roles of video journalist, editor, and camerawoman.

Ms. Brault told the New York Times, “At the time it was deeply provocative to teach women to make films. The Kabul journalists-in-training were between the late teens and mid-twenties… many arrived in their floor-length veils… The most defining moment for me was the day in Faizabad, the capital of Badakashan, when Mehria Azizi confronted a group of men, some of whom carried weapons, who wanted to know why they were not wearing the chador… She responded: ‘[Is it] written in the holy Koran that a woman cannot show her face? No, that is not true! Any person who is that ignorant is beyond comprehension… This is not Islam.’”

As finale to this unique training program, Ms. Brault’s students filmed Afghanistan Unveiled, a nearly one-hour documentary by Afghan women on Afghan women. The film contrasts the freedom of these young camerawomen and the harsh life of Afghanistan’s rural women.

In December of 2004 I connected with Mehria Azizi. She is still as spirited and traveling the countryside to document the plight of her countrywomen, to show them that there is a future for Afghan women and to share her personal story with them.

Azizi said, “We are no longer the thirteen young women who were trained by Ms. Brault. We are now five regular journalists and camerawomen and make documentaries and movie reports that are accepted by our television stations. Two do not speak English. Afghanistan’s culture requires a married woman to stop working as a journalist. Some of the men will not let their wives work, while others will allow them to be a teacher, as this is mainly a half-day’s job. I personally could not be proud of myself if I were married and could no longer work as a journalist and travel to Aghanistan’s provinces. I gained a lot experience and knowledge as a camerawoman filming in rural areas. I found great difficulties with rural Afghan women to share and come forward.”

Azizi is not married and now working full-time at AINA as a video journalist and is her family’s sole provider.

Azizi continued, “We found that women here in Afghanistan have difficulties helping each other. The people are poor and do not have the background and abilities needed to step out of the ordinary. Most want to either make carpets and handicrafts, or own such a business. There are different people in Afghanistan; some are educated and some are uneducated. Some educated people are proud of what we are doing.”

Mehria showed great initiative and courageousness in continuing on a path filled with danger and antagonism. “I feel that my greatest achievement is that I can broadcast reality with my camera, without any fear and asking for favors,” she says. “As a journalist I can help change others’ thoughts and behavior and I can choose to portray upheaval. I chose peace.”