Diaa Hadid works as an international correspondent for NPR in Islamabad, Pakistan. Previously, she worked for the Associated Press from 2006-2015 and the New York Times from 2015-2017. Prior to working with NPR, she reported on the middle east for over a decade. She now lives in Islamabad with her husband and daughter.

In 2019, Diaa and her team won the Murrow Award, a journalism award, for her piece on why and how Pakistan has the highest rate of abortion in the world.

This conversation spans her upbringing in Australia born to a Lebanese father and Egyptian mother, the pursuit of career and life outside of her Muslim family, the transformation of identity, the logistics of journalism in Pakistan, peculiar details around the story on Pakistan and abortion as it pertains to women’s rights and culture, the details around another story on Israel's youngest prisoner, a 12-year-old Palestinian girl who got her first period while being interrogated, and other fascinating journalistic investigations that tell much bigger stories about women in the world.

It is because of Diaa’s tenacious curiosity, that such important and fascinating stories are shared with the West. Because the range of topics are so impressive, I will list some of them below.

Diaa has documented the collapse of Gadhafi's rule in Libya from the capital, Tripoli.

From Beirut, she was the first to report on widespread malnutrition and starvation inside a besieged rebel district near Damascus.

She unraveled the mysterious murder of a militant commander, discovering that he was killed for being gay.

In Syria, she met the last great storyteller of Damascus, whose own trajectory of loss reflected that of his country.

In Libya, she profiled a synagogue that once was the beating heart of Tripoli's Jewish community.

In Lebanon, she chronicled how poverty was pushing Syrian refugee women into survival sex.

In Baghdad, she met women who risked their lives to visit beauty salons in a quiet rebellion against extremism and war.

In Cairo, she wrote of revolutionary upheaval sweeping Egypt.

She covered the violence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

We are so lucky to hear these stories directory from Diaa as well as learn about her history- the history that’s not shared in public bios. This conversation is an honor and a pleasure. Enjoy.

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