Afghan journalist Khadija Amin to speak in Fuerteventura about women’s rights

Afghan journalist Khadija Amin will speak with journalist Javier Sánchez in Fuerteventura on Monday 9 November, as part of the Voces desde la frontera series. The conversation is scheduled for 8pm in the Sala Josefina Plá at the Centro Bibliotecario Insular.

Amin, who lives in Spain, fled Afghanistan in August 2021 after the Taliban returned to power. She describes the current situation in her home country as “gender apartheid” and warns that women and girls have lost rights over the past five years.

From Kabul to Spain

Amin was a news presenter on Afghan public television. She presented the morning news on 15 August 2021, the day the Taliban took Kabul, and later found she could not return to work. She has described facing pressure and threats before leaving for Spain a few days later.

She said she chose journalism to give other women information about their rights, having struggled to understand her own rights during her divorce. Before the Taliban’s return, she presented a programme on a private television channel that discussed women’s rights with religious figures, government representatives and members of the public.

Amin said she visited her three children in Germany several times in 2024. She said their father subsequently took them back to Afghanistan and that she had not been able to speak to them since June.

Work for Afghan women and girls

Through the association Esperanza de Libertad, Amin said she works with women and girls inside Afghanistan, supporting clandestine handicraft production and an online school for girls.

She is the author of Sin velo. Una mujer libre contra los talibanes and features alongside Colombian journalist Andrea Aldana in Exilio y palabra. A documentary, Khadija Amin ¿Dónde están mis hijos?, follows her struggle to reunite with her children.

At the Fuerteventura event, Amin will be in conversation with Sánchez, a journalist at Revista 5W.