Afghanistan’s hidden lives

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kate Adie presents stories from Afghanistan, China, Japan and Tajikistan.

In Afghanistan's Ghor Province, Mahjooba Nowrouzi reports from a small maternity hospital where two female doctors serve thousands of patients. With limited resources and financial support, the odds are stacked against them - and against the women they tend to and treat.

Last year, BBC Radio 4’s Crossing Continents aired the award-winning documentary ‘Our Whole Life is a Secret’, which charted the daily life of a young Afghan woman. In this dispatch, she provides an update on her life today, four years after the Taliban returned to power.

In Beijing, pro-democracy campaigners regularly face surveillance and restrictions on their movement. Among them is human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang, who was arrested in 2015 and imprisoned for 'subverting state power'. Danny Vincent heard about his life since his release.

It's 80 years since Japan’s Emperor Hirohito surrendered to allied forces in World War II after the US dropped two atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing an end to the six-year-long conflict. Ellie House encountered a group of schoolchildren in Hiroshima's peace park - and learned more about how the war is remembered there.

In the Tajikistan the endangered striped hyena is fighting for survival. Tajik conservationists have been working hard to save this elusive and much misunderstood animal. Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent met them on a trek into the mountains.

Series Producer: Serena Tarling Production Coordinators: Katie Morrison & Sophie Hill Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, today we're in Afghanistan, where we hear how life has changed for two women since the Taliban returned to power four years ago.
0:15.0	In Beijing, a human rights lawyer once imprisoned for subversion of the state, tells of the civilian spies employed to keep
0:23.6	tabs on him. On the 80th anniversary of VJ Day, we reflect on how the Second World War is remembered
0:31.1	in Japan. And finally, we're in Tajikistan, on the trail of the maligned and misunderstood striped hyena.
0:41.0	But first, to Gore in Afghanistan, a province with unforgiving terrain and crumbling roads,
0:47.7	to a small maternity hospital where two female doctors serve thousands of patients.
0:57.4	With limited resources and financial support,
1:04.2	the odds are stacked against them and against the women they treat. According to the United Nations,
1:12.9	Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, a figure that could rise as international aid shrinks,
1:19.2	and as the Taliban continues to impose restrictions on NGOs that employ women.
1:23.0	Mahjuba Nauruzi reports from Gore.
1:34.0	The hospital in Fidozko is a pale and assuming building, sit with a spacious compound lined with green pine trees, fruit trees and flowering shrubs.
1:39.2	And it is a lifeline for thousands in this remote part of Central Afghanistan.
1:44.0	Women often travel for hours across rough terrain to reach it.
1:48.1	Resources are scarce, but the need is constant.
1:51.7	Firosko is the capital town of Ghor province.
1:54.0	It's a place of faded grandeur.
1:56.7	Once a central of Islamic art, it is now mostly made up of mud-brick homes and crumbling buildings, shaped by resilience and long winters.
2:05.7	Inside the hospital, the maternity wing is bustling with women and children.
2:10.5	Men are not allowed inside.
2:12.7	They wait in the courtyard outside, sitting on benches in the sand for hours, clatching plastic bags of
2:19.4	medicine or folded shawls. Inside the hospital, the pace is relentless. I met Dr. Chattera just before
	...

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