Ute Schaeffer

“You will never be perfect – this is the precondition of a work-life-balance. Second, you have to be very well organized and have a talent for improvisation. And third, women need to take themselves seriously and invest in their education.”

This is how Ute Schaeffer, DW’s Editor-in-Chief for Regionalized Content summarizes her success formula for managing her private and her professional life.

Schaeffer, born in 1968 and a mother of three, does not care for stereotypes about women or men. She laughs when she remembers how, after being appointed DW Editor-in- Chief in November 2011, male colleagues confronted her with their expectations about her style of leadership and management as a woman.

Women in Afghanistan are slowly becoming financially independent

Just until a few years ago, Zulfia did not have any option other than giving up her studies and staying at home in Kabul. Now, with the help of NAZO, a German organization she teaches young women to become independent.

21-year-old Zulfia says, “I couldn’t keep going on with my education due to financial problems, so I had to stay home. At first I was not so courageous. I had nothing to say. My social contacts were few. I was a shy girl. But I was interested in working outside my home.”

Atifa Mansori, the head of Afghanistan’s business union in Herat says: “Due to the traditional discrimination against women and the country’s current social, political, cultural and economic condition, women have less job opportunities. Few are allowed to work outside their homes.”

Life is tough enough for women in Afghanistan, but things get more complicated when a young woman decides to take up journalism in a country riddled with conflict.

Tamana Jamily is one such young reporter-in-the-making. A student of media studies in Mazar-e-Sharif, Jamily works part-time at a radio station in her city. Supported by a scholarship from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, she is now in Bonn to hone her radio skills in the Deutsche Welle. Jamily speaks to DW’s Martina Bertram about the dangerous life of a journalist in her war-ravaged country.

Woman in a man's world: Kazmi is Pakistan's first female cabbie

Pakistan is experiencing a rapid increase in the number of women joining its workforce. But the country is grappling with physical, psychological and sexual harassment of women in the workplace.

Afsheen*, an air hostess with the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), recalls when she was selected to work with the airline company. She was briefed on how to keep passengers satisfied, but the introductory training did not include any clues on how to keep the pilots “happy.”

A few months later, the pilots called her and her colleagues to go to the cockpit. “They would touch us on the back and the chest intentionally, and pretend it was a mistake,” she remembers. Things got worse when pilots started demanding sexual favours during flights and on the ground, and managed to get some too.