It's an Inside Job

How Do You Reclaim Your Voice After Captivity? Mellissa Fung on Trauma, Courage, Resilience and Bearing Witness to Women’s Suffering in War

• Jason Birkevold Liem • Season 7 • Episode 39

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“You don't know how strong you are until you're faced with a crisis. I never thought I could survive being kidnapped and thrown into a hole. But somehow, you find the strength in you to get through it.” - Mellissa Fung

In this powerful episode, I sit down with veteran journalist, author, and filmmaker Mellissa Fung, whose work spans war zones, survival, and the untold stories of women living through conflict. Mellissa shares her personal journey—from her early reporting days at CBC to being kidnapped while on assignment in Afghanistan, and how that experience reshaped her understanding of trauma, agency, and the power of narrative.

We discuss how she transformed her experience from victimhood to resilience and why she continues to shine a light on the lives of women and girls affected by war—especially in Afghanistan and Nigeria. From her acclaimed books Under an Afghan Sky and Between Good and Evil, to her documentary Captive, Mellissa’s storytelling centers empathy, courage, and the fight for dignity in forgotten corners of the world.

This episode is about more than journalism. It’s about finding strength through pain, the responsibility to amplify unheard voices, and the resilience it takes to keep caring in a world overwhelmed by conflict and complexity.

What We Talk About:

  • Melissa’s early career and what drew her to stories of women and overlooked communities
  • Her harrowing 2008 kidnapping in Afghanistan—and how she mentally and emotionally survived
  • The process of reclaiming her story and identity through healing and writing
  • Her powerful return to Afghanistan and what it taught her about trauma recovery
  • Why she chose to document the stories of girls abducted by Boko Haram
  • The growing global indifference to women's suffering in conflict zones—and what we risk by looking away
  • Reflections on resilience, agency, faith, and post-traumatic growth
  • The shifting landscape of women’s rights around the world in 2025

Key Takeaways:

  • Resilience isn’t about being unshaken. It’s about staying present, accepting pain, and finding strength even when broken.
  • Storytelling is a form of resistance. When the world looks away, telling the truth becomes an act of care and courage.
  • Healing isn’t linear. Melissa’s journey reminds us that trauma can be transformed, but not rushed or erased.
  • Human rights must remain universal. The rollback of women’s freedoms globally is not just a regional issue—it’s a shared responsibility.

Featured Works by Mellissa Fung:

  • Under an Afghan Sky: A Memoir of Captivity
  • Between Good and Evil: The Stolen Girls of Boko Haram
  • Captive (Documentary Film)

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Speaker:

Welcome to It's an Inside Job, the podcast where we equip you with actual skills to build resilience, enhance communication, foster well-being, and lead and coach with impact. I'm your host, Jason Lim, and every Monday we bring you expert insights and real-world stories to help you thrive and succeed. And with that said, let's slip into the stream. Well, welcome back to the show. In this episode, I sit down with Melissa Fung. She's a veteran journalist, a best-selling author and filmmaker whose life and work have been shaped by courage, trauma, and a deep belief in the power of storytelling. From her time as a foreign correspondent for CBC, that's the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, to being kidnapped in Afghanistan, Melissa has continued to shine a light on stories that too often remain in the shadows, especially those of women living through conflict. In our conversation today, Melissa shares the hard truths and the human moments behind war zones, abduction and survival, and what keeps her going back. In today's conversation, we take a candid look at what trauma can teach us about resilience and how it reshapes our sense of agency. Also the emotional and ethical weight of reporting from conflict zones and why stories about women in war are so often overlooked and how Melissa fights to bring them forward how telling your story or listening deeply to someone else's well how that can become a path to healing we also explore Melissa's award-winning books Under an Afghan Sky and Between Good and Evil and her powerful documentary Captive which draws parallels between her own abduction and those of women held by Boko Haram. This is more than a story about journalism. It's a conversation that pulled at my heartstrings, but I found so compelling and thought-provoking. And the empathy Melissa shares is profound. I mean, this is a conversation about humanity. It's about courage, and it's about the responsibility to care. So without further ado, let's slip into the stream with this amazing conversation with Melissa Fong. Melissa, welcome. Thanks for having me, Jason. For our audience, could you briefly introduce who you are and what you do? Yeah, I am a Canadian journalist currently based in London, England, but about to move back to Canada. I spent the better part of two decades at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a correspondent before then. And I think we'll talk about, you know, how I came to leave the CBC, going freelance on my own and trying to explore topics that, you know, are near and dear to my heart. Topics that I feel are important. You know, as a journalist working for a network, you're often assigned stories. You can't sometimes pick and choose what you want to do. I reached a stage in my career where I thought, no, this is these topics are important to me and I want to try to shed light on them. And so I decided to quit my job and, you know, do it, do it the hard way, do it the freelancing way. So that's what I'm currently doing. Um, it's been, you know, I've spent the better part of the last, I'm guessing, I'll say 12 years going back and forth between, um, Afghanistan and Nigeria to sort of focus on stories about women and resilience. Um, so that's really where I'm at right now. What drew you to sort of journalism and sort of in your earlier career, looking at or focusing on international conflicts. Um, you know, it's sort of come full circle, right? I started off, you know, back when I was starting off as a journalist, there was a trajectory, like a career path you took. You started in local news, right? And then you graduated to national news and then foreign correspondents. Um, so as, even as a local reporter, I was drawn to stories that, um, you know, international conflicts always have a local effect. And so, you know, especially growing up in Vancouver, where there are big immigrant communities, you know, who are affected by conflicts. I mean, we're talking about in Vancouver back in the, you know, 80s and 90s, you know, India was a big topic. You know, the Air India explosion, of course, that many people might remember. But, you know, the story that really kind of grabbed me was not international at all. It was the disappearance of women from Vancouver's downtown east side over the course of, I think, you know, several years. A police detective I came to know working in the area said, I think there's a serial killer in the downtown east side. But these women were prostitutes. A lot of them were First Nations. And so the police didn't take it seriously. You know, they, in fact, said, you know, I mean, they treated these women as disposable. But they had families who were worried about them, right? They had loved ones. And so I really, you know, became very involved in that story. And when it actually came to light that, you know, Robert Pickton was a serial killer preying on these women years later. It just really struck me because I even had a hard time at first selling that story to my editors, sort of treated these women sort of as throwaway. And I couldn't ever, I couldn't ever get, I never got over that. And so I think that's sort of what started me on trying to, you know, shed light on women whose stories would otherwise not be told. It rattles me a little. That was in Canada, right? So can you imagine, you know, in other countries, that was Canada. And that wasn't that long ago. It was, you know, the 90s. To give a little more background also, our mutual friend Jim Gifford put us in contact. And, you know, we had a pre-meeting, pre-interview, a meeting. And you know your story I found it moved me and I found it very compelling I don't want to dive too much into it but I'd like to give some background or I'd like you to give some background so in 2008 you were you were in a kidnapping in Afghanistan and that was well for you obviously a defining moment I was wondering if you could share a bit about the aftermath or the of that experience and how you began to process what happened well i'll you know i mean i'll just go over it briefly i was um it was 2008 and if you remember i don't know if people would remember but the the fighting in afghanistan was really intense those few years and we were embedded with Canadian soldiers who were working out of Kandahar, which was one of the most dangerous places to work out of in Afghanistan, because it is the birthplace of the Taliban. It's an area they knew way better than we did. So, you know, Canadian journalists, you know, to our network's credit, made sure that that story was covered. As long as there were Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, there would be Canadian journalists embedded with them. But the fighting was really intense that summer. And, you know, I was hearing that people were leaving Kandahar. They were leaving Helmand, Erzgan provinces in the south and migrating up north to the outskirts of Kabul, living in these, you know, unofficial refugee camps, right? They were IEPs, internally displaced. And so I really wanted to tell that story. You know, it was mostly women and children who were out of school because of the conflict. And so we, my Afghan colleague and I decided that we would leave the Kandahar airfield, leave the base for a few days and go up to Kabul and try to tell some of those stories. And it was, you know, it was, I remember setting foot in the Chihari Kambar refugee camp, and I couldn't believe it. Like, at the time, there were maybe 2,500 people there. It's since grown. And it was open sewers, really just, you know, mud huts, kids running around, you know, nobody really. The UN were there trying to keep tabs on it and providing some food, some fuel, but really a horrible situation. So it was a Sunday morning and we stayed there probably, you know, just a little under an hour. And when we were leaving the camp, a car drove up and three masked men with AKs hopped out, forced me into the car, but not before stabbing me in the shoulder and in the hand. I think I asked for that because I landed a punch trying to fight back. And then they drove me out of town. It was like a very long drive. And then we got to sort of the base of a mountain it looked like and I was forced out of the car at gunpoint and then forced to hike for I don't know what it seemed like hours until we got to, a village where I then was you know we were then met by somebody on a motorcycle and I was squeezed in between two of the kidnappers on a motorcycle and driven away and And then it ended up being Wardak province. So, you know, we had like, we were quite far from Kabul by then. And they threw me into a pit, you know, a hole in the ground, literally. And that's where I was held hostage for about a month. So you know at the time um and people ask you know how were you treated well and i like to just say you know imagine being a woman being kidnapped and held hostage by men armed men just go to the worst possible place and you know it would have happened you know without going into all the gory details. I was eventually released because the Afghan authorities knew who the kidnappers were. This was not their first rodeo. And so the head of Afghan intelligence rounded up the whole family of this main kidnapper, including his mother. And it ended up being me in exchange for the mom. What were some of your internal resources or your coping mechanisms that helped you survive such a horrific ordeal? I get asked this a lot, and I really, I don't know. I think, you know, I think you just, I think what I tried to do was not spiral while I was in the home, right? Because it's very easy to think, oh, my God, right? Nobody's ever going to find me. And if they try to find me, I'm going to be killed in the, you know, middle of a gunfight. Right. It's a hole in the ground. You know, they're never going to find me. What if my kidnappers the last week I was there, they left me chained and alone because that's when the head kidnappers family, I think, was rounded up. So they left me alone. I thought, OK, now I'm alone in a hole. What if they never come back? What if they're killed? Nobody's ever going to find me. Right. I'm going to die in here so it's very easy to spiral when you think like that and I really just tried not to, I prayed a lot I call myself a lapsed Catholic and I still am it's Lent and I haven't given anything up mostly because we've been moving and I'm so stressed I need my chocolate. But I prayed a lot And somehow that really helped It helped calm me down Kept me from, you know, spiraling, And funny thing, you know Sometimes there would be a kidnapper with me, usually And he'd be praying five times a day, right? So I'm thinking, God, who's listening? It's the same God, right? So how can I be praying and he'd be praying to the same God when he's just done all this to me, you know? And so it was really, I don't, crisis in faith would have been too strong a word, but it made me wonder a lot about, you know, God's role and whose prayers was he listening to, mine or my kidnappers? I still don't have the answer to that but I'm still a Babs Catholic. Were there other things you were doing? I mean, sort of, I guess through praying that gave you some sort of agency over a crazy situation such as that. I mean, were there other things that you were doing at the time, you know, when you're just sitting in a pit, chained to the side of the pit and such, to help keep your mind from spiraling? I spent the first week or two interviewing my kidnappers right I you know I had my notebook which they did end up let me keeping like when I was released finally they made me leave that behind but yeah I spent the better part of the first while getting to know them in a way um there was one guy Khalid who was just a young kid and and we had decent conversations like he never hurt me um not like the others um and so i you know i talked to them um and i wrote in my journal in my notebook just sort of you know like journaled um but like every journalist right i was trying to understand their motive um what you know why they were doing this and so So that sort of, you know, that part of my brain sort of kept me sane, right? Because I was, you know, using my journalism to try to stay alive, really. And so you under, did you ever, did you ever sort of relate or connect to understand the, I don't even know how to articulate the drivers of the motivation behind such heinous treatment? Of yourself? Um... Not really. No. I mean, you know, what helped was that I had the year before visited an orphanage in Kabul. And it was a boys orphanage. And they were not just boys, but the young men who had, you know, up to the age of, I think, 15, who lost their parents in the conflict or through sickness. And you could see how easily it would be for the Taliban to convince these disaffected youth to join them because it would give them community. It gave them, you know, a sense of belonging, friends. Right. And so I think I sort of understood where they were coming from once I found out that, you know, Khalid didn't have parents. Right. And, you know, Abdurrahman, you know, was abandoned. Right. And so I sort of, you know. I sort of understood where they were coming from, that they would be vulnerable to joining a group like the Taliban. Okay. Okay. I was just curious myself. I mean, you've spoken about transforming your narrative from victim to survivor. I was wondering what the turning point in that process was and how did you begin to, how can I say this, reclaim your story, reclaim your narrative? Um, many people think that by writing about it, that I could reclaim it, but I won't agree with that. Um, I almost had to write the book because I was afraid other people were going to write that story. And that ultimately, as a journalist, that is my story. And the book was Under an Afghan Sky, correct? Under an Afghan Sky. That was a memoir of being in captivity. And I wasn't looking back I think our mutual friend Jim would agree I wasn't really ready, it was too soon after but I was getting lots of pressure outside pressure to tell my story or else somebody was going to tell it somebody else was going to tell it and and so I didn't really have a choice and it was I really wasn't ready because it was a bit re-traumatizing to write that book because I had to go back into the hole. I had to go back into captivity to write it the way I did. So I won't say that was the moment. I do think that going back to Afghanistan for the first time was a big step. And I went on my own with an aid organization or NGO, formerly called Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, now called Right to Education, Right to Learn Afghanistan. And I went back with them and I wrote about, I wrote a long magazine article about going back with them. And that was the beginning of it. I also thought, you know, that I had to go back to the refugee camp where it all started, where I was taken. And eventually I went back and told the story that I never got to tell. You know, because as a journalist, becoming the story is the worst thing that you could do. It's kind of a cardinal sin to become the story. And I became the story. And, you know, I'd gone to tell stories of people whose stories wouldn't get told. Right. And instead, you know, my I became the story. And so I carried a bit of guilt around that for a long time. And I thought by going back and telling the story of the women and children at that camp, you know, I would begin to, you know, I would I would feel better. Right. My PTSD would be my trauma would be erased. And that wasn't true at all. What that trip did, I think that was seven or eight years after the kidnapping, it was. It made me realize that, you know, recovery and trauma is a journey. And that was a big step in that journey. And that it was okay to talk about what happened all those years ago. It was okay to acknowledge that, yes, I was a victim of the kidnapping, but I survived it. And turning that trauma into, you know, turning that, you know, PTSD into traumatic growth instead of traumatic stress, I think that's where I turned the corner. And that was, you know, seven or eight years later. So I went through a very long time when I think I was in denial about how trauma was affecting me. And I, you know, I'm pretty good at going to therapy, right? Like I know when I need help. Even that wasn't, you know, I had to come to it on my own in a way. Thank you very much for sharing your background. I'd like to shift the conversation, if that's all right. I'd like to segue into sort of looking, focusing on women and conflict. Your work extends beyond, obviously, this experience. And you wrote a second book, Between Good and Evil, The Stolen Girls of Boko Haram. I was wondering what compelled you to tell the stories of these girls and how did your experience inform your approach to interviewing and writing this book about these girls? Um, kidnapping is a trigger for me, right? So if I hear a kidnapping automatically, I'm, I'm a bit triggered. Um, so when I heard about the fact that 276 girls were kidnapped overnight from their school in Chibok, in Nigeria, I was, you know, I was really, um. Really heartbroken for them. And I couldn't stop thinking about them. You know, they were kidnapped from their school, they were spending, they were taken to the Sambisa Forest, which is this no man's land in Nigeria. And probably being, and being, you know, married off to Boko Haram fighters, being sold as sex slaves. You know, it was, it was really, it was triggering. And I couldn't stop thinking about them because I had gone through something not even, you know, as horrific as that, right? But it had taken me all these years to process my trauma and be on a road to recovery. And reading more about Boko Haram and what they did, I realized that that cohort, the 276 girls, a small, tiny fraction of the actual number of girls they had taken into the forest over the last decade or so. Can you imagine, Jason, right, like that we don't know about this until this one incident, right, that there are thousands of girls missing because they've been taken into the forest by this terrorist group. I couldn't believe that this wasn't front page news somehow, that that we we didn't know anything about it. And so I decided to talk to some of those girls. I tried to find them because I know that they had, some of them had managed to escape, some of them rescued over the years. How were they coping with the trauma, the aftermath of a kidnapping? And I wanted to know. I wanted to see what I could learn from them. And that's why I sort of embarked on that five-year journey, going back and forth to tell their stories. You've also expressed some concern about the funding and support for these stories, these women's stories, these girls' stories in conflict zones. I was wondering, what are some of the unique challenges these women face or these girls face? And what can we do or what can be done to amplify these voices or their voices, maybe I should say? I think it's their voices. I think some of the challenges are the challenges that, you know... Everybody faces trying to tell stories in conflict zones, right? Funding is a big issue. There's no, it's hard. It's hard to find funding. Everybody's more concerned with what's going on in their backyard. And, you know, to think of girls in Nigeria or Sudan or, you know, Darfur, think about, you know, what's happening there now. It's really hard to to get people to care and that's, the bottom line I think a lot of people are too, there's so much going on in the world right now right, that especially in our own countries that we're trying to deal with, that it's very hard to. Have the energy to care about people who are further afield these days and that includes funding for them funding for you know people to tell those stories and so it's you know we're not not a great not a great moment in time right now when foreign aid is being cut back you know programs that have saved lives in Africa are being discontinued, it's really, it's hard to get people to care. And I, you know, I don't know, I sound very hopeless about it, but I do feel, you know, we're at a very hard, moment in history right now when it comes to shedding more light on these stories. You know, when you see both sides of the fence and you think of all the geopolitical tensions going on all the the shifts the challenges the complexities the changes that are happening at the time of recording right now it's it's it's hard for i guess individuals because it can seem so overwhelming we can feel so overwhelmed by and disempowered that what can i do as one individual and it's this constant stream of news as you said you know some of these conflicts in sudan are not talked about, in Afghanistan, in Nigeria, in Somalia, in Haiti, which is quite close to, you know, Canada, you know, all that. And when we have everything else on top of that, it can be quite overwhelming with people with doom scrolling and such. And I think many people find the refuge in just tuning out, dropping off. But at the same time, when you look at the other side of the fence, what about all these other human beings that are, As you've described, it's suffering and going through horrific experiences. It's a hard nut to crack. It really is, I don't have the answer for that right now, you know. But what I do know is if we can continue sort of telling these stories, you can open people's eyes, right, to something beyond what's just in front of them. And you can move people, not so much even to act to help girls in Africa, say. But, you know, just look a little more outside themselves in their own communities. So I think it's important for us to try to keep telling these stories. I mean, we can't, you know, this is the time where, you know, artists and writers and journalists need to actually work harder. Right. Because we need to counter all the bad stuff that's going on around us. In the first part of my conversation with Melissa, we explored the arc of her remarkable career, from her early days at CBC to her bold decision to go freelance in order to pursue stories that matter deeply to her. Based in London, Melissa spent the last 12 years covering stories of women and resilience, particularly in Afghanistan and Nigeria. What struck me was how a local Canadian story about missing women in Vancouver, the west coast of Canada, first ignited her passion to report on stories that are too often ignored or dismissed. She opened about her 2008 kidnapping in Afghanistan, a harrowing experience that changed her life. Melissa was reporting from a refugee camp when she was abducted, stabbed, and held captive in a pit for nearly a month. What was remarkable was how she used that time to interview her captors, to pray, and to ground yourself mentally. After her release, traded for the kidnapper's mother while she returned to Afghanistan, determined to finish the work she had set out to do. That resilience led her to write Under an Afghan Sky and to keep telling the stories of women affected by conflict. We also discussed the uphill battle of funding these kind of stories. Melissa shared how difficult it is to get sustained interest and support for reporting on women and girls in conflict zones. Especially now as foreign aid dwindles but she remains committed to raising awareness and helping people care about what's happening beyond their own borders so now let's slip back into the stream with my final part of my conversation with the courageous melissa fun. You also produced a documentary film a compelling film actually captive where you explore abduction and the links to the experiences of abducted women. I mean, what was the process like to make that film, to the extent you wish to share? And what did you take away from it? That film was really tough to make, mostly because we were funding, again, an issue, and we were working in northeastern Nigeria. Which is, you know, not the safest place for journalists to venture into. But I really wanted to connect with the girls, the girls who had come out of the forest, because, you know, I wanted to find out how they were coping, how they were recovering. And what ended up happening was that we bonded because we had a similar experience. You know, they look at me and they thought, oh, how could, you know, we have anything in common with a Western journalist? But we did have this experience in common. And I say that, I say, you know, knowing that what they went through was far worse than what I went. And yet they think that what I went through was, you know, just as bad. And so it ended up being like a sharing of stories. They were very curious, you know, how I survived being in captivity. What did my captors feed me? Did they hurt me? Where did I sleep? Where, you know, like they were asking all these questions that, you know, people usually don't want to ask me, right, for good reason. But I was really open and I felt... You know, in that community of a safe space to talk about my own experience. And yet here I am, I had the benefit of, you know, trauma therapy from one of the best therapists in the country. And they had nothing but their faith, you know, they just kept praying. You know, this is, you know, this is what Allah wills. And so I had to go through these trials. That's not to say that a little bit of therapy didn't help them either, because along the way, I met an amazing Nigerian psychotherapist, Fatima Akilu, who is UK, US trained, but Nigerian. And she's opened up a center, the Neem Center, Neem Foundation in Maduguri. And she's doing wonderful work with the survivors of Boko Haram. And also doing really great work rehabilitating some of the members of Boko Haram who are ready to leave the terrorist group and be reintegrated into society. Covering all the stories that you have and going to some of the most, you know, conflict-ridden areas of the planet, what have you learned about resilience? I mean, what really stands out to you? You know, it's a funny word. I used to not love the word resilience because I think you don't know how resilient you are until you're faced with a crisis, right? Right. Like everybody always used to say to me, you know, I couldn't have survived, you know, 28 days in a hole in the ground in Afghanistan. And I say you could have because I would have said the same thing before it happened to me. Somehow find the strength in you to get through it. I think you don't know how strong you are until you're faced with a crisis. Right. And so, you know, it's not I never thought I could have survived being kidnapped and thrown into a hole and being, you know, raped and starved and stabbed. I thought I would, you know, I never thought I'd rather die. That's what I would have said before it happened to me. And then and then after you somehow you get through that. You find whatever reserves you have to get through the crisis. And then it is the aftermath, I think, that is where you find this resilience. Because what it is, I think I've learned, is that denying it isn't going to make it better. It's not going to kill you. Accepting it. That this experience happened to you, it is a part of you now, and it's a part of the lens through which you view the world, is, I think that is, that's what I would call resilience. I don't know if I'm even, if I'm saying it right, but I have the scars from my stab wounds still, right they're physical and the one that's on my hand um they they destroyed a nerve or something because I don't have feeling in my two fingertips still you could you know smash this finger with a rock and I would not feel it um and sometimes the scar is itchy right and so it you know it I'm constantly reminded of that the physical scars are there still, right? But it's the scars that you don't see that take a lot longer to heal and that somehow change your perspective and change how you see things. And, you know, scars like are not scars, not a great term, you know, but it's something is shifted. Right like a traumatic event has will will will change your life um but how it changes your life is something that you always have agency over does that make sense yeah completely i talked to a holocaust survivor uh in the first season of this show and it all came back down to that, He said he was 16 at the time and he had lost everyone in those camps. And it was, it came back down to the narrative. It came back down to his sense of agency, autonomy of the situation. Sometimes it was the smallest things. As you said, you know, you prayed. That was one way. You prayed often. You used your... Your journalistic instincts and skills and experience to understand your captors and to understand their drivers, their motivations. Not that you could relate with it, but you tried to understand it, but that in itself kept you sane per se. And I see reflections when I used to work with, not the level of trauma you've had, but when I used to work with trauma, I hear it resonates with me a lot of what you've said you also said you know going through the trauma going from post-traumatic stress to post-traumatic growth it can it shifts your lens of how you see the world how do you see the world now here in 2025 thinking about your sojourn thinking about all the experiences and interviews of of the different women that you've and the girls that you've interviewed what is the lens you in which you see the world through now how would you describe that. I always have believed that women's and girls' rights are fundamental human rights and they shouldn't be different from anybody else. And I, you know, so what happened to me, the way I was treated as a hostage and as a woman. Sexual violence is still a scourge. And so I feel it more deeply because I have firsthand experience in conflict of what these women go through. Not as bad as what they, nowhere near their experiences, but I know what it feels like a little bit, right? Right. And so I really right now in 2025, I'm not not happy with the way things are going with with women's rights. You see, you know, countries repeat Nigeria, you know, voted to repeal a law that protect protected women from sexual violence. You know, in Korea, there are not enough laws, South Korea even, to protect women from having their images altered by AI into pornography, right? By bad actors. Deep fakes and such, yeah. Deep fakes. So, you know, I fear that women sort of are losing that agency that they fought so hard. And let's not even talk about reproductive rights in the States, right? I do feel like we're backsliding a little bit and look at Afghanistan, nobody's stepping up to tell the Taliban that they need to let girls go back to school or women go back to their jobs women are being, there's decree after decree that the Taliban have you know, put in saying women are not allowed now to even go to parks. They're not allowed to play sports. They can't be singing in public. They can't even be heard in public, you know, so, and nobody is coming to the defense of Afghan women. And so if nobody, you know, nobody, it's not all, nobody came you know at first they came for you know the trade unionist and I wasn't one and so you know that I don't remember who wrote it but you know nobody's nobody's coming to the aid of Afghan women who are one of who are the most oppressed women on earth right now and so where does that leave, you know, that's a, that is slippery slope, right? I don't know. So I don't, I'm, I'm not feeling great about, and that's the lens now because I feel it more deeply. So I see, you know, see things in a more sort of dire light, you know, especially the women in Afghanistan. And especially because I, you know, spent the better part of two decades tracking their progress, right? Going back and, you know, talking about why, you know, more girls are not in school, about the challenges for female politicians. And now, you know, all that is gone even. Do you feel within certain cultures, there are certain belief systems that tend to fuel the belief that women are, that they should be relegated to a lower position than men? Are there certain cultures or belief systems that tend to fuel this more than others? I don't want to believe that, right? Because I have talked to a lot of Afghan men who want daughters to be educated, right? So I think it's always a small sect of a certain group that have these very fundamentalist beliefs about women. And so, you know, and sadly, you know, they may be the loudest, right? And they may be the ones in power. But I like to think that, you know, most most men and most cultures you know believe in equality when you're talking about it i'm reflecting where i live you know in scandinavia and there's a huge push towards secularism and humanism and equality and sort of a diverse diversity of opinion and such for me it's just it's such a. It's almost like black and white, night and day, your experience of talking about some of these countries compared to, you know, my day-to-day here in Scandinavia. Again, this is anecdotal and it's coming from my head, from my filtered experience, but it seems such a huge contrast. It's like talking about two different planets. Well, at one point, you know, we shouldn't forget that, you know, a third of parliamentarians in Afghanistan were women, right? Which, you know, was more, was even more than a third, I would say. Anyway, I think the, don't quote me on the year. I, you know, I should have looked it up before talking to you, but I think at one point it was, the percentage was more than in the U.S. Congress, more women in the Afghan parliament. So, you know, it's easy to, right, and now that's all, that's all gone. But, you know, I think that progress can't be forgotten, you know, in the hopes that one day we can get there again. Just to shift the conversation, I'm very respectful of your time. What advice would you give to individuals who may be struggling to find their own path towards some level of healing and resilience in the face of what adversity they may be facing? I think the most important thing is just to be kind to yourself and don't put unrealistic expectations on what recovery is, a time period for recovery. I think accepting what's happened, whatever trauma, whatever trial or tribulation is a very important first step. Like it's, you know, sometimes I have a friend right now who's dying of cancer and she's quite young and it's easy to say it's not fair. I, you know, and not accept it, but she has an amazing piece around her, right? Because of that acceptance. And I'm learning a lot from her about, about that. I mean, you know, I, I think I also came face to face with my mortality. And so I was ready if that was going to be the end of me in Afghanistan, I was, I'd accepted it, but. But I'm learning a lot from her because she's just accepted her diagnosis with, you know, I mean, in the beginning, it was, there was some why, right? Why, why me? And you have to allow yourself that. Allow yourself to be angry and allow yourself to cry and be sad and upset. Because it's almost like the stages of grief, right? Yes. In a way. And so she's come to this acceptance now, and it's really nice to be around her, not just because I want to spend as much time with her as possible. But she's living every day, even days when she's not feeling well um to the fullest and there's a lot you know it's a big big lesson to me who thought I figured it out um that there's always you know a way to accept things that you otherwise might not want to there's a way there's a path there there's a path to get to that acceptance but it's okay to be angry and to lash out crying and so do it right and and hopefully that gets you on the path to acceptance and i guess that is part of the processing of what is happening to someone however it shows up uh the anger the frustration you know the the why me's and such considering your long road what are you most proud of and what do you hope your legacy will be? At the end of my career, I'm still not there yet. I still think I've got other stories to tell, but I would like to hope that I have shed light into some dark corners and raised amplified stories and voices that otherwise might not be. And in so doing, like, maybe bring greater understanding, which is what, you know, I think most journalists want to do anyway. You know, help each other empathize a little more, right, with somebody you might not think you have anything in common with. That's all. You know, just maybe, you know. I think maybe I'd like to think that I helped people see our common humanity in a way. I think we definitely need more of that right now, considering all the conflict and division. But Melissa, thank you very much for such a deep and eye-opening and intriguing conversation today. I've learned a lot from you. Thanks for having me. You know, it's not always easy stuff to talk about, but you made it less painful. Thanks for that. As we wrap up today's conversation, I was struck by Melissa Fung's, her commitment to telling stories that the world often turns away from. You know, these stories of survival, of resilience, and the spirit of women who endure the unimaginable. You know, we spoke about her documentary film Captive, which draws deeply from her personal line between her own abduction and the experiences of women held by Boko Haram in Nigeria. Her work there wasn't just about reporting. It was about connecting. It was about healing and honoring the voices of girls who had merged from the forest with their dignity and strength intact. Through her lens, we see how trauma, when it's acknowledged and integrated, how it can shift how we see ourselves and our place in the world. Our conversation also turned to the bigger picture, the broader picture, concerning the state of women's rights in 2025. Melissa didn't hold back in highlighting where things are slipping, Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Korea, and how silence and inaction enable regression. And yet, even in the darkest places, she continues to shine a light, reminding us of our shared humanity and the importance of defending basic rights. I asked Melissa what was key for her moving forward. And she said it's about illuminating the stories and the shadows and helping people to see each other more clearly. And for me, that's the heart of real journalism. Melissa, a personal thank you for your courage, your voice and sharing your experiences. And your relentless pursuit to tell the stories of these women and of these girls and for those of you who would like to read more about Melissa's experiences, she has two best-selling books Under an Afghan Sky and Between Good and Evil and if you want a powerful documentary, I'd recommend watching Captive, Well, folks, thank you for joining me for another episode. I will see you Friday for Bite Size Fridays. And until then, keep well, keep strong, and we'll speak soon. Music.

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