Much has been said and studied about the power of communication as a tool for social change, but we rarely have the opportunity to see it as palpable as on Rádio Mulher, a station managed and hosted only by women in central Guinea-Bissau. There, for six years now, a group of young journalists has taken control of the microphones to sneak into the homes of Bafatá, the country's second city (22,000 inhabitants, according to the 2008 census), to promote gender equality. through 98.0 FM.
This is an initiative promoted by the Sevillian NGO Periodistas Solidarios and which, since February 2018, has managed to position itself as a benchmark for journalism with a gender focus. Thanks to its varied programming, it addresses topics ranging from health, education or human rights to awareness campaigns on female entrepreneurship or the emancipation of girls and women, in this former Portuguese colony in West Africa strongly affected today by drug trafficking and extreme poverty.
Guinea-Bissau is one of the countries with the highest poverty levels in the world and where practices that threaten the health and integrity of girls and women, such as female genital mutilation or forced marriages, still prevail. It does not have communications infrastructure or transportation routes, so traveling the hundred kilometers that separate Bafatá, in the center-north of the country, and the capital, Bissau, in the west, can only be done by the only road that crosses Guinea-Bissau and which is in deplorable conditions.
The Rádio Mulher frequency is, in this way, the only source of local information in this city of about 60,000 inhabitants, where there is only electricity service until nightfall and where having a television is a true luxury.
In this complex national context, devastated by political instability, and where women have traditionally been forced to dedicate themselves to caring for children and the home, Rádio Mulher is presented as a light of hope, since the panorama little by little has begun to change throughout the Bafatense region thanks to the tireless work that the station has been doing.
“Many have not had the opportunity to know what female empowerment is and what it means to be a woman, which does not mean being a maid at home doing housework, as we all thought here. Now, thanks to Rádio Mulher, we are freed from this thinking and this discrimination,” says Fatumata Binta Candé, the director of the station, who, at 26 years old, has the important mission of leading the dozen editors who report daily on the reality of their community, while proposing innovative themes and approaches to achieve their objective: raising awareness among their listeners about equal rights and opportunities between women and men.
Over the years, the radio's journalistic work has denounced, for example, the problem of the use of tababa, a type of hallucinogenic vaginal drug to which multiple uses are attributed, such as inhibiting sexual appetite, rebuilding the hymen or promote conception, and whose use is widespread throughout the region. Thanks to the research carried out by Rádio Mulher journalists, it was possible to understand its composition, its uses and the harmful consequences for the health of those who use it, a journalistic exercise that has been of interest to organizations such as the United Nations.
In 2018, the journalists made a report that denounced the problem of “talibés children”
(meninos talibés,
in Portuguese), a very common form of child abuse in the country, which consists of a supposed religious training, mostly in Muslim families, and aimed at girls and boys from needy homes, but which in reality ends up becoming a begging practice that benefits religious educators.
Regarding the impact that the radio is having among girls and young people in the community, Fatumata Binta Candé tells us that the station itself is a source of inspiration for many and a springboard for others, who see journalism as a true vocation for their projects. of life.
“Now we, who are working here, or other girls who leave have the ability to study and take other courses to work. So this is being a very big example for many mothers, who now want their daughters, who are at home, to go to study to look for another opportunity like us,” she says.
In 2023, under research work led by the University of Seville and with funding from the Andalusian Agency for International Development Cooperation, it was possible to evaluate for the first time the impact of radio in this community and assess its achievements over the past five years. In an immersion exercise and with qualitative methodologies such as in-depth interviews and focus groups with listeners and authorities, it was concluded that the radio content has been positively affecting men and women. And, since its launch, there have been changes in the behavior and conceptions of the community around the role of women in society, while highlighting the turning point that the station itself has meant for the life of the community. thirty editors who have passed through their microphones.
“If Rádio Mulher had not existed in Bafatá, I don't know what would have happened in my life... Me without working, without knowing that I could be different, that I could make decisions about my life, that I could speak in public... it was going to be a street girl...", says Vardineia Semedo, one of the youngest editors, who today is responsible for the evening magazine Bem-vindo (Welcome), in which, in the Kriol language - the Creole language spoken by the population - local—listeners call to request their favorite songs and share their opinions on the topic of the day, always presented in a genre key.
With six years on the air and with challenges still ahead, such as achieving the desired self-financing or stopping the drain of talent, today, Rádio Mulher is a true reference for community radio in the city and throughout the country. An example that communication is a powerful tool to transform realities and reliable proof that wherever there is a transistor and a listener eager for information, radio is and will be a useful medium with which to build a better world in which live.