Radio Khyber airs in the heart of Pakistan’s volatile tribal areas, where women are bound by centuries-old codes of conduct enforced by Pashtuns, the dominant ethnic group in northwestern Pakistan. The code’s tenets are oppressive and non-negotiable. Women should confine themselves to their homes and the sole task of raising children. Their voices should never be heard by strangers.

Asma Nawar, a 25-year-old Pashtun with a crisp, resonant voice, repeatedly breaks that last rule as a reporter for Radio Khyber. “I feel good about that,” she says, peering out from the maroon-and-yellow veil that covers the rest of her face. “I can’t say that our cultural values are wrong, but I think women should come out and work.”

Nawar and two other women hired in the last year as reporters for the radio station see themselves as trailblazers in a part of Pakistan that mires its women in old world thinking. In Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the dismal 3 per cent literacy rate for women is far lower than the overall rate of 17 per cent. In addition, this year the Taliban burned down scores of girls’ schools throughout the Swat Valley.

Nawar narrows her gaze when the subject of the Taliban comes up. “We know they are listening to us,” she says in a studio at the University of Peshawar. “Am I worried? No, because I’m doing the right job.”

Radio Khyber is able to employ women because its editors and producers know just how far to push boundaries. They minimise risks for women by barring them from doing stories in the tribal areas and they make them focus primarily on children, education and healthcare, considered here as women’s issues. Subjects such as tribal politics and military operations are off-limits.

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