FOREIGN PRESS AWARDEE 2022
Zahra Joya is an Afghan journalist. She has been named as one of Time's women of the year 2022 for her reporting of women's lives in Afghanistan. She was born in Bamyan Province in 1992. She was 5 years old when the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan. From 1996 to 2001, they banned almost all education for girls. Joya would dress as a boy and go to school. She is the first girl from their small village to went to university. She studied law.
She started being a journalist in 2011 for the local media outlet. In 2020, she decided to create a newsroom named after a woman who was stoned to death by the Taliban in 2015 in Ghor province. The name of her newsroom is Rukhshana. In the Jun of 2021 Rukhshana media has started a partnership with the Guardian and published some painful stories about Afghan women. Until the Taliban came back to power in Afghanistan, she was in Afghanistan. in August 2021, she was forced to flee the country. now Rukhshana media is a platform for women. and tries to amplify the voice of Afghan women who lost their rights because of the Taliban law.