A Bleak Future For Afghanistan’s Young Women
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 26 November 2022
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kate Adie presents stories from Afghanistan, China, Iraq, Colombia and Ireland.
The Taliban announced a ban on women going to parks, swimming pools and gyms this month, following one on girls attending secondary schools. Yogita Limaye spoke to one young woman about what life is like in Kabul as these once cherished freedoms disappear.
The story of Gao Zhisheng, a Chinese human rights lawyer, who was repeatedly detained for his work defending members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement and Christians, is a cautionary tale of Xi Jinping's China. Michael Bristow followed his story from his initial arrest in 2006.
The UN has said Iraq is the world's fifth most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The country's two main rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris have seen their water levels drop significantly this year as the country experienced one of its worst droughts. Leila Molana Allen spoke to locals about the impact on their livelihoods.
Colombia's new leftist president, Gustavo Petro, campaigned on a manifesto of tackling inequality and switching to a greener economy. But rising inflation and a depreciation of the peso has proved a challenge to enforcing his radical agenda. Rohan Montgomery went for a ride with motorcyclists in Medellin and heard their views on life under Petro.
The story of the 'Sack of Baltimore', where a village in Ireland's County Cork was ambushed by Barbary pirates, intrigues visitors to the area, in particular to the Algiers Inn. The attack. in 1631, was the worst on Ireland who took their captives back to North Africa and eventually sold them into slavery. Vincent Dowd went to speak to the locals about what happened.
Producer: Serena Tarling Production Coordinator: Iona Hammond Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts |
| 0:05.2 | Today a cautionary tale of Xi Jinping's China. We hear the story of a Chinese dissident |
| 0:11.4 | who chose to stand up to the authorities, then disappeared. In Iraq, date palms are |
| 0:18.0 | wilting after months of drought. Our correspondent finds out how farmers, north-east of Baghdad, |
| 0:23.7 | are coping. Motorbike riders in Colombia are struggling to make ends meet, |
| 0:29.1 | as fuel prices continue to soar. We take to the winding mountain roads of Medellín to hear more. |
| 0:37.0 | And finally, we're in Baltimore on Ireland's southern coast, where we hear the centuries-old |
| 0:42.7 | story of the Algerian pirates who kidnapped more than a hundred English settlers and sold them |
| 0:48.7 | into slavery. First Afghanistan, where more than a year after the Taliban take over of the country, |
| 0:56.6 | restrictions on the freedom of women have been increasing day by day. This month, the Taliban |
| 1:02.8 | announced a ban on women going to parks, swimming pools, and gyms. A few months ago, the Taliban's |
| 1:10.0 | ministry for the prevention of vice and promotion of virtue ordered that all women must once again |
| 1:16.4 | wear the burka, covering their bodies from head to toe, including their faces. And there's a ban |
| 1:22.7 | on girls attending secondary schools in most of Afghanistan. Those who continue to study do so |
| 1:30.1 | under the threat of a tax and violence. How do they endure it? Yogi Telemaya met one young student. |
| 1:38.0 | The classroom has just been rebuilt. Rectangular with bare white walls, it's filled with rows of |
| 1:44.2 | wooden benches. There's a strong smell of wet concrete, and still a hint of the metallic smell of |
| 1:50.4 | blood. It's the exam hall of a private tutoring centre, where two months ago, an attacker detonated |
| 1:56.5 | a suicide bomb, killing more than 50 people. Most of them, female students, who were taking a mock |
| 2:02.8 | test in preparation for university entrance exams. No group claimed responsibility for the attack. |
| 2:09.6 | One survivor is a young woman. She's not being named to protect her. She lost most of her close |
| 2:15.8 | friends in the attack. Slim with dark hair, her face looks tired. For a second, she pauses before |
... |
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