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http://www.internews.org/prs/2007/20071003_chad.shtm

 

She Speaks, She Listens programs are aired on three radio stations in the east of Chad: La Voix du Ouaddai in Abéché, Radio Sila in Goz Beida, and Radio Absoun in Iriba. The coverage area includes the majority of refugee camps in the east of Chad. These stations are part of the Internews Humanitarian Information Service, a project designed to provide critical news and information to refugees from Darfur

Breaking Silence, Bringing Hope

Chad - Radio Program Tackles Issues Facing Darfur Women

Internews journalist interviews a refugee woman

Stephanie Barret/Internews

Houda Malloum, a journalist for the radio station La Voix du Ouaddai in Abéché, interviews a woman in the Gaga refugee camp for an episode of the women’s radio program, She Speaks, She Listens.

(October 3, 2007) “I had to obey the orders of my uncle who was providing for us. My uncle said the man was one of us and I was to marry him. He used to tell me that I had no reason to refuse this marriage, and that it would happen whether I accepted it or not….”

These are the words of Halima, 26, a refugee from Darfur living in Gaga, a refugee camp to the east of Abéché, Chad. She told her story in an interview collected by the Internews reporting team on gender-based violence, based in Chad.

Halima was forced to get married and live with a man she had never met. She explains that each day, her life at home was hell.

Her experience is similar to that of thousands of Sudanese women from Darfur who never had the chance to contemplate entering a consensual marriage, one in which they had the freedom to choose their husbands or even express their own opinions.

Through this episode of She Speaks, She Listens, Houda Malloum and Halima Nassir, two reporters for the Internews-founded radio station La Voix du Ouaddai in Abéché, chose to break the silence surrounding forced marriage and to expose the plight of women in eastern Chad, refugee and Chadian alike.

Through daring features, She Speaks, She Listens contributes to the emergence of a new force in eastern Chad, a desire to contribute to the improvement of women’s condition in the region.

Halima left her husband and now lives with her mother in Gaga. Halima’s mother, a regular listener of the Arabic version of She Speaks, She Listens, says she wanted her daughter to speak out about her experience and her forced marriage because she knew of the radio program and wanted other women to hear her daughter’s story, and know that there is hope for their own lives to improve.

“I could not prevent this marriage, but if you help us inform people about the problems with this type of marriage, one day the situation will change,” Halima’s mother says. “That certainly will not benefit my daughter directly, but maybe my grandchildren and other women will be free one day, thanks to your program.”

She Speaks, She Listens, on air for nearly two years, is a weekly feature program created by Internews and funded by the Office of Transition Initiatives at USAID. The program is breaking new ground in eastern Chad by regularly addressing sensitive issues of violence against women with the aim of giving a voice to women, stimulating community dialogue, and eventually improving attitudes and behaviors surrounding women.

She Speaks, She Listens programs are aired on three radio stations in the east of Chad: La Voix du Ouaddai in Abéché, Radio Sila in Goz Beida, and Radio Absoun in Iriba. The coverage area includes the majority of refugee camps in the east of Chad.

These stations are part of the Internews Humanitarian Information Service, a project designed to provide critical news and information to refugees from Darfur funded jointly by the U.S. State Department’s Office of Population, Refugees, and Migration, the Office of Transition Initiatives at USAID, and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).





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