Female journalists in Balochistan brave the odds
For the past many years, Balochistan has been in the grip of a low-intensity conflict, and has experienced four insurgencies since Independence. While separatist groups continue to carry out attacks on security forces, human rights organisations have expressed concern about a growing number of missing person’s cases and human rights violations. In more recent times, the ethnic Shia minority has been particularly vulnerable, with more than 500 members of the Hazara community killed in targeted attacks over the years.
Amid the insurgency and sectarian violence, the province, Pakistan’s largest in terms of land mass, has also become inhospitable for foreign journalists and a dangerous place for local journalists, at least 40 of whom have been killed, according to unofficial reports.
In 2014, Reporters Without Borders ranked Khuzdar, the capital of Khuzdar district in central Balochistan, among the world’s 10 most dangerous cities for journalists. The same year, Amnesty International described the area as a “graveyard for journalists”, after at least six media persons were murdered in Khuzdar and 21 in the province in the preceding few years. Among them were two of the local press club’s presidents and its general secretary.
There are currently a total of five women journalists working in Balochistan. All of them work in TV news. There is not a single woman covering news for the province’s local version of the national newspapers, or the local newspapers.
This figure is disproportionately low compared to the rest of the country. While female journalists are far from being treated as equals across Pakistan, their counterparts in Balochistan deal with additional structural, political, cultural and economic issues that have kept them on the margins of the profession.
by Anisa Shabir
Source: Dawn
” 
” 
” 
” 
” 
