Iraqi women's radio station seeking support

There's a sense of urgency on Radio Al-Mahaba, Baghdad's "Voice of Iraqi Women." The station, which debuted a year ago, wants to educate women about their rights in a country where those rights are in a state of flux. It also gives Iraqi women a chance to express their opinions on everything from husbands to politics.

"We tell about their dreams, their suffering, their hopes," explained Radio Al-Mahaba spokeswoman Bushra Jamil in a phone call from Baghdad. Jamil will be in Salt Lake City next week, where Utah friends she has never met are hoping to raise enough money to replace Al-Mahaba's transmitter, destroyed by a bomb last fall.

Utah, too, has a women's radio station, KUTR AM-820. Perhaps there is less suffering on KUTR, and more patter. Still, morning host Kurt Bestor (one of the few men at the station) feels a solidarity with the broadcasters in Baghdad. Bestor has convinced his bosses at Bonneville International to make Al-Mahaba and KUTR "sister stations."

The alliance actually began, in a roundabout way, with Ako Swabb. A native of Japan and the wife of an American, Swabb heard about the women's radio station in Iraq after her son served a Marine tour in Fallujah. She began an e-mail correspondence and then a phone friendship with Jamil, and invited her to come to Utah for a vacation.

Then one thing led to another. Swabb's Salt Lake neighbor told her about Womenade, a local group that supports women's causes, and that led her to Kathy Wilson, Julie Marple and Beryl Main, and then to Bestor. Now, Jamil's visit has expanded to include talks at the Salt Lake City Library and the University of Utah.

"Gradually, Iraqi women lost their freedoms and their rights," Jamil says. Many of those rights were debated as the country worked out a constitution last year, with Shiite fundamentalists pushing for the implementation of Islamic law that could, for example, make it illegal for an Iraqi woman to travel by herself outside the country.

The programming on Al-Mahaba (the name means "love" in Arabic) includes interviews, news, music and, most significantly, a call-in show — where women can hear the opinions and struggles of other women. A year ago, when the station was launched, the programs were aimed at more educated Baghdad women, and were focused on the elections and Iraq Constitution, Jamil says. But it soon became clear that "we didn't address the real needs of Iraqi women. Now we have programs about legal advice, health and education." If the topic is the constitution, there will often be role playing, she says, "using very simple language that is understood."