Nelufar Hedayat

Nelufar Hedayat (born 1 January 1988) is a British journalist and presenter who hosts the podcast Course Correction [1] and is the correspondent for Doha Debates.[2] She previously worked across the BBC, Channel 4, Netflix, Fusion and The Guardian covering breaking news, live events and in-depth investigations in some of the world's most dangerous places. Her work often focuses on cultural upheaval experienced by women, children, and families during a conflict, especially in her native Afghanistan.

Nelufar Hedayat
Nelufar Hedayat at Doha Debates
Born (1988-01-01) 1 January 1988
Kabul, Afghanistan
OccupationCorrespondent, presenter
Years active2010–present

Background

Born in Kabul, Afghanistan,[3] in 1988, Hedayat came to the United Kingdom from her war-torn homeland.[4] Her mother, who was a civil engineer, took a job cleaning hotel rooms, and her father, a professor of mathematics, worked as a carpet salesman.[5] Hedayat has said: "Growing up in North London, identity was never really a big issue. I always felt I was free to be who I wanted to be, surrounded by a world where difference and eccentricity were the norm."

Career

In December 2012, she appeared on the BBC show Celebrity Mastermind, and came third, with Harry Potter as her specialist subject.[6]

Hedayat joined BBC Three in 2009 and left in 2011 for BBC Newsround. In 2014 she left the BBC and worked as a general reporter for Channel 4 News. In 2015–16 she worked on The Traffickers for Lightbox Media.[7][8][9] She joined the Fusion Media investigative team in late 2016 and is now a full-time Fusion host.[10]

In 2017 she was named Manchester Metropolitan University and Routes into Languages North West Journalist of the Year.[11]

Women, Weddings, War and Me

This 2010 documentary, directed by Ruhi Hamid,[12] follows Hedayat as she returns to her homeland for the first time since leaving some 15 years earlier. She is presented as a typical British teenager, shopping, going out and spending time with her friends. Unlike most other 21-year-olds, however, Nel also has her history rooted in Afghanistan, where her parents were brought up and where most of her extended family currently live. She decided to return to Afghanistan to explore this part of her identity and discover how the lives of women in Afghanistan have changed with the fall of the Taliban. As she described it afterwards: "I met with women who had been so defeated by a patriarchal society, they thought of themselves as second-class citizens. I found a world of extreme violence against them, where they were traded like animals – not treated as human beings. Girls were in prison for trying to escape abusive marriages. I cried with these women, tried to understand them and to comfort them. ...I came back to the UK knowing that I had changed. I was humbled by my experience, but there was an ever stronger feeling of thankfulness to my mother, who had saved me from such suffering."[13]

The documentary was shown on BBC Three from 2 March 2010. It also aired in Australia on ABC on 17 May 2010 and it has received largely positive reviews,[14] while scoring the highest audience approval rating for a documentary on any channel ever reported.[15] The documentary has gone on to win the Broadcast Digital Award for Best Current Affairs' Programme.[16]

Music, Money and Hip Hop Honeys

In this BBC Three documentary aired in 2011, Hedayat explores the controversial world of hip-hop music video girls. She meets a host of young women in the UK hoping to "make it big" as hip-hop models both in the UK and the US. However, alongside the glitz and glamour of the music video scene, Nel discovers a darker side to the industry where girls open themselves up to both financial and sexual exploitation.[17]

Vietnam's Dog Snatchers

In her 2014 début for Channel 4's Unreported World series, Hedayat went to uncover the secret world of the dog meat trade in Vietnam. Millions of dogs are killed every year to satiate the demand for the meat. Often pets are stolen from homes because the demand is so high and police officers can do little but fine the thieves.[18] Hedayat finds trucks crammed full of hundreds of dogs hungry and vomiting after being force-fed rice on the way to Hanoi's dog meat only restaurants and meets the village that murdered the thieves plaguing them. Hedayat worked on the film with director Daniel Bogado.[19]

The Traffickers

In her first 8 part documentary series, Hedayat takes a deep dive into the hidden world of traffickers and illicit markets around the world uncovering vast criminal networks enabled by middle men and corruption. visiting 32 countries worldwide, looking at pharmaceuticals, animal, miner; and human trafficking, Hedayat sets out to investigate with hidden cameras and connections the way these illegal markets make billions of dollars and how they connect[5] to every day life for ordinary people. Hedayat won the Gracy award[20] for best journalist in 2018 for her work on the series.

Television
Year Title Role
2010Women, Weddings, War and Me, BBC ThreePresenter
2011Music, Money and Hip Hop Honeys, BBC ThreePresenter
2011The Truth about Child Brides, BBC ThreePresenter
2010-14Newsround, CBBCPresenter and Reporter
2012Riots and Revolutions: My Arab Journey Part One, Egypt and Bahrain, BBC ThreePresenter
2012Riots and Revolutions: My Arab Journey Part Two, Libya and Lebanon, BBC ThreePresenter
2013Shot For Going To School, BBC ThreePresenter and Associate Producer
2014Vietnam's Dog Snatchers, Unreported World, Channel 4Reporter
2014Channel 4 News, Channel 4Reporter
2015Vaccination Wars, Channel 4Reporter
2016The Traffickers, Fusion Media NetworkInvestigative Correspondent
2018Food Exposed With Nelufar Hedayat, Fremantle MediaInvestigative Correspondent

References
  1. "New Podcast Series: Course Correction" Course Correction
  2. "Nelufar Hedayat: Correspondent"
  3. Nelufar Hedayat, "Why Kabul must leave the big fat Afghan wedding alone", The Guardian, 27 May 2015.
  4. Alex Heigl, "Nel Hedayat's Journey from Afghani Refugee to International Journalist", People, 16 December 2016.
  5. Nelufar Hedayat, "A Muslim TV Host in the Age of Trump: “Now Is the Time to Act'", Vanity Fair, 14 November 2016.
  6. "Will Nelufar have magical Harry Potter knowledge?", Celebrity Mastermind, BBC One, 28 December 2012.
  7. The Traffickers, Lightbox.
  8. Stephanie Baumoel, "Fusion uncovers the not so black and white truth about the black market with new series 'The Traffickers'", Broadcasting & Cable, 5 October 2016.
  9. Brianne Garrett, "Meet the 28-year-old journalist uncovering the global black market", USA Today, 9 December 2016.
  10. David Ford, "Food Exposed: Journalist Nelufar Hedayat Uncovers The Shocking Truth Behind The Water We Drink And The Food We Eat In New FUSION Docuseries", 21 February 2018, Fusion TV.
  11. "Nelufar Hedayat named MMU and Routes into Languages Journalist of the Year 2017", Asian Media Awards, 29 October 2017.
  12. "Women, Weddings, War and Me (2010)", BFI.
  13. Nel Hedayat, "Marriage, prison or death?", BBC News Magazine, 23 March 2010 (updated).
  14. Tom Sutcliffe (24 March 2010). "Last Night's Television - The Delicious Miss Dahl, BBC2; Women, Weddings, War and Me, BBC3". The Independent. London.
  15. Danny Cohen (18 June 2010). "BBC Three wins at the Broadcast Digital Awards". About the BBC Blog. BBC.
  16. "Broadcast Digital Awards".
  17. Music, Money and Hip Hop Honeys (clips), BBC, 5 January 2011.
  18. Nelufar Hedayat, "Dogs kept in cramped cages and slaughtered for meals: The horrors of Vietnam's meat trade", The Mirror, 2 October 2014.
  19. "Vietnam's Dog-Snatchers (2014)", BFI.
  20. "The 42nd Annual Gracie Awards - Red Carpet", 6 June 2017. GettyImages.
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