Afghanistan's hidden lives

Kate Adie presents stories from Afghanistan, China, Japan and Tajikistan.

In Afghanistan's Ghor Province, Mahjooba Nowrouzi reports from a small maternity hospital where two female doctors serve thousands of patients. With limited resources and financial support, the odds are stacked against them - and against the women they tend to and treat.

Last year, BBC Radio 4’s Crossing Continents aired the award-winning documentary ‘Our Whole Life is a Secret’, which charted the daily life of a young Afghan woman. In this dispatch, she provides an update on her life today, four years after the Taliban returned to power.

In Beijing, pro-democracy campaigners regularly face surveillance and restrictions on their movement. Among them is human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang, who was arrested in 2015 and imprisoned for 'subverting state power'. Danny Vincent heard about his life since his release.

It's 80 years since Japan’s Emperor Hirohito surrendered to allied forces in World War II after the US dropped two atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima ad Nagasaki, bringing an end to the six-year-long conflict. Ellie House encountered a group of schoolchildren in Hiroshima's peace park - and learned more about how the war is remembered there.

In the Tajikistan the endangered striped hyena is fighting for survival. Tajik conservationists have been working hard to save this elusive and much misunderstood animal. Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent met them on a trek into the mountains.

Series Producer: Serena Tarling Production Coordinators: Katie Morrison & Sophie Hill Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith