Hakima Darhmouch: Queen of the French-speaking Belgian television

This blog post is going to draw our attention to the situation of women in the very small but very worth knowing country that is Belgium, and more particularly on the situation of women in the Belgian media landscape. Although the proportion of women in the Belgian journalistic world has tremendously increased over the last ten years, today men are still more numerous than women in that field. A study carried out in 2013 shows that only a third of the Belgian journalists were women. In 2003, only 20% were women.

One great example of a woman who succeeded in showing that she deserves her place in the Belgian media sphere in undoubtedly Hakima Darhmouch. This 36 Belgian journalist of Moroccan origin has become one of the most appreciated figures of the French-speaking Belgian television. After her bachelor in communications in Brussels, Hakima Darhmouch started to work as a journalist at the bottom of the scale and became ten years later an anchor of the TV news on the private French-speaking channel of Belgian television (RTL-TVI). She also worked as the communication director of a famous Belgian politician (Louis Michel). She appears passionate, modest, professional and very close to her viewers partly thanks to her activity on her Twitter account. I think that her success should be an inspiration for every young Belgian girl – whatever social class they may come from – who wishes to pursue a career in the very manly world that is television in Belgium. She managed to break down the negative stereotypes that unfortunately a lot of people have about people of Northern African origins and she became, during her thirties, one of the ‘stars’ of Belgian television. 

In my opinion, Hakima Darhmouch is the proof that with work, effort and ambition, it is possible to achieve your goals, even when you come from a modest background. The Belgian media landscape could definitely use more people like Hakima to reduce the gap between male and female journalists.

Sources:
http://resic.ulb.ac.be/uploads/documents/Enquete_journalistes_2013_FR.pdf
http://www.rtl.be/rtltvi/
https://twitter.com/hakimadrtl
http://www.lesoir.be/745237/article/culture/medias-tele/2014-12-30/hakima-darhmouch-rejoint-brigode-comme-numero-1-des-telespectateurs