Zuhal is a women’s affairs journalist with an extensive background in covering issues related to women in Afghanistan. Zuhal worked as a multimedia journalist with the BBC Afghanistan from 2018 to 2022. After the collapse of the Afghan government in 2021, she left Afghanistan to Dubai, where she continued to report on Afghanistan for the BBC, and later to Toronto, Canada, where she continued reporting as a freelance for the Guardian, Al Jazeera, and other international news outlets.
Zuhal was awarded the prestigious William Southam Journalism Fellowship, where she attended the University of Toronto as a 2022-2023 CJFE Canadian Journalists for Free Expression Fellow at Massey College. Zuhal also worked as an Associate Editor with Chatelain, a very well-read Canadian women’s magazine in Toronto, for a year until September 2024. Zuhal holds two bachelor’s degrees: bachelor’s of Business Administration from the American University of Afghanistan, and another bachelor degree in communication and journalism from Kabul University.
Currently, she is studying a Master degree in Marketing at Schulich School of Business at York University. She was awarded a full scholarship by a US-based non-profit organization, JREF Journalism Refugees Education Fund, to pursue this degree. Meanwhile, she continues to work as a freelance journalist, and she is going to launch and present a series of monthly podcasts focused on transitional justice and stories of Afghanistan that is a shared work by Zan Times; a women-led investigative newsroom, and AHRDO, an independent, not-for-profit organization committed to promoting democracy, human rights, and social justice in Afghanistan.