✍️ By: Hamia Naderi
In the early spring of 1941, after a 13-year hiatus, Radio Kabul resumed broadcasting with morning and evening programs — one hour in the morning and two hours in the evening.
Historical accounts credit two pioneering women as the first female voices on Radio Afghanistan: Ruqia Habib Abubakr and Latifa Kabir Siraj.
According to Dr. Abdul Ahmad Javid, who led the radio in the 1950s, the first woman’s voice ever broadcast belonged to Ruqia Habib. He recalled visiting her home with a tape recorder to record her speech, titled “Women and Our Society,” which was later aired. Some records also name her as one of the first Persian-language announcers alongside Goya Etemadi.
At the time, she reportedly had to wear a chador to enter the studio and present her program. Born in 1919 in Chihilston, Kabul, Ruqia attended Masturat High School, earned a social sciences degree from Kabul University, and worked as a teacher, editor-in-chief of Mermon magazine, a member of the Historical Society, and head of publications at the Red Crescent. She was elected to the Loya Jirga in 1964 to help draft the constitution and later served in the National Assembly.
However, many media outlets, including Radio Azadi, Bakhtar News Agency, and The Kabul Times, named Latifa Kabir Siraj as the first female broadcaster at Radio Afghanistan.
Latifa Siraj spent her childhood in Iran, returned to Afghanistan in the late 1940s, and taught Persian, history, and geography at Malalai High School for 11 years while also promoting theater alongside her sister Zainab.
After the Soviet invasion in 1979, she fled to Pakistan and later moved to the United States, where she worked for Voice of America for ten years. She passed away in 2013 at the age of 90 in the U.S.
While the historical record remains divided between Ruqia Habib and Latifa Siraj, both women broke barriers, becoming trailblazing voices for Afghan women in broadcasting.
