Press Releases

Afghan Women’s Mission Calls for Increased and Improved Reporting on Afghanistan

January 1, 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT
Voice: 626-676-7884
E-mail: info_at_afghanwomensmission.org

Altadena, CA – (March 25, 2005) The current state of social, economic, and political rights in Afghanistan is so dismal that a US-based advocacy group is calling for major news outlets to have more coverage of the country, with better reporting.

“Most US media institutions don’t have full-time reporters in Afghanistan anymore,” said Sonali Kolhatkar, co-director of the Afghan Women’s Mission (AWM), Altadena, CA. “Much of the limited reporting coming out of Afghanistan has a misleading positive spin and is focused on superficial change. Despite their joy at being able to vote in elections last October, Afghan people are saddened that the United States has seemingly once more forgotten them.”

Kolhatkar and fellow co-director James Ingalls recently returned from a trip to Afghanistan. Kolhatkar is also the host of the LA-based radio program Uprising and Ingalls is a staff scientist at the California Institute of Technology and a freelance writer. They surveyed projects funded by AWM and operated by RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, which runs hospitals, orphanages, emergency relief programs, schools for children, and literacy courses for adults; and conducts peaceful demonstrations for women’s rights.

“Very little has changed since the Taliban fell. Yet US media outlets have, through their inaccurate coverage and, more recently, lack of coverage, given the impression that women are now free, educated, and employed, and have political and economic equality. Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Kolhatkar. Ingalls commented that women’s access to employment, education, health care, and housing, as well as their ability to have a voice in the new government, “are directly impacted by the continued US and Afghan government backing of warlords and regional commanders, a fact nobody wants to talk about in the US.”

During their visit, the AWM co-directors were able to witness many of the problems that beset Afghan women and girls, and to interview them about their opinions on the current situation in Afghanistan. “We don’t see why news organizations shouldn’t be able to do what we did,” Kolhatkar added. The Afghan Women’s Mission praised Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other non-governmental organizations for their independent and steady coverage of Afghanistan.

The group is urging its supporters to write to US media outlets, asking for better coverage of Afghan women’s issues. A webpage (https://www.afghanwomensmission.org/campaigns/media_coverage.php) provides a letter that can be edited and then automatically mailed to national newspapers and radio syndicates: the New York Times, LA Times, Newsweek, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Globe, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, the Guardian (London, UK) , CBS 60 Minutes, and National Public Radio.

The Afghan Women’s Mission works in solidarity with RAWA to help improve health and educational projects for Afghan women, as well as promote democracy and women’s rights. Visit AWM’s website at www.afghanwomensmission.org.

For more information about the social and political work of RAWA, visit their website, www.rawa.org.