Iraqi women's radio station seeking support

Domestic violence is a favorite topic on the call-in shows. "Women feel safe when they talk over the phone. A woman doesn't have to give her real name. But she can start to tell us about her suffering." The station has a lawyer on hand to answer questions about custody and marriage, for example "about second or third wives," Jamil explains.

The station was founded by Debbie Bowers of Buffalo, N.Y., and an Iraqi refugee who moved to upstate New York after the Gulf War. Bowers, who will join Jamil in Salt Lake City, applied for a grant from the United Nations Development Fund for Women, eventually securing $350,000 to start the station. It was hoped that it would become self-sufficient after the first year, but Iraq's struggling economy, the insurgency and damage to the station last October have proved obstacles. The station is leasing a transmitter at high, war-time prices.

The staff of Radio Al-Mahaba is mostly female and secular. Only one staffer wears a traditional head scarf, in a city where "many secular women are wearing scarves to protect their lives," Jamil says. With their more progressive ideas, the station sometimes butts heads with the country's fundamentalists, who sometimes try to intimidate reporters, Jamil says.

"They say, 'Why talk about politics. This is none of your business. Talk about food. Talk about children.' "

The staff of Radio Al-Mahaba "are the people walking the walk," says co-founder Bowers. "They're laying the foundation for the next generation to have that very public right to have their voice heard."

Jamil, who also works as an human-rights officer, was reached by phone in Baghdad at about 8 p.m. Iraqi time. She was still at work, putting in her usual 14-hour day. "It's needed," she explained. "It's not a time to focus on ourselves. We're holding our country very close because once you let go, the whole thing will collapse."

She will speak the the Salt Lake City Main Library at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 19; at the University of Utah's Women's Resource Center on Thursday, April 20, at noon; and on Friday at the university's Hinckley Institute of Politics at noon. Her visit is sponsored by Al-Mahaba-Salt Lake City and Bowers' Opportunities for Kids International.

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E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com