TOKYO, Oct 10 (IPS) – The cinema hall of Tokyo’s Toda Peace Memorial Hall fell silent as the Kazakh filmmaker and human rights activist Aigerim Seitenova stepped forward in a black T-shirt and green skirt to introduce her 31-minute documentary, “Jara – Radioactive Patriarchy: Women of Qazaqstan.”The screening event was co-organized by the Kazakh Nuclear Frontline Coalition (ASQAQQNFC), the Soka Gakkai Peace Committee and Peace Boat, with support from Japan’s NGO Network for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (JANA).
The hall itself is symbolic of the Japanese peace movement. It is named after Josei Todathe second president of the Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai, which made its history historic in 1957 Declaration calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons for 50,000 youth members. That call has become a moral pillar of Soka Gakkai’s global campaign for peace and disarmament.
Reclaiming women’s voices
“This film was made to make visible the voices of women who have lived in silence. They are not victims – they are storytellers and changemakers,” Seitenova told the audience of diplomats, journalists, students and peace activists.
Her documentary, Jara– which means “wound” in Kazakh – tells the stories of women from Semey, formerly known as Semipalatinsk, the site of 456 Soviet nuclear tests conducted between 1949 and 1989.
Unlike previous films that focused on physical devastation and disability caused by nuclear testing, Jara examines the invisible and intergenerational consequences: the stigma, the psychological scars and the inherited fear of having children.
“In most films, Semey is shown as ‘the place with the most nuclear weapons on earth.’ I wanted to show resilience instead of fear – to reclaim our story in our own voice,” she said.
Breaking the silence
Seitenova’s personal connection to the issue began with humiliation.
When, as a university student in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, she introduced herself as being from Semey, a classmate mockingly asked if she had “a tail.”
“That moment stuck with me,” she remembers. “It made me realize that nuclear damage is not just physical. It lives on in prejudice and silence.”
That experience would later prompt her to make a film that breaks that silence.
Patriarchy and nuclear energy
In JaraWomen do not appear as passive victims, but as active participants in their communities, confronted with the legacy of secrecy and discrimination.
“In militarized societies, nuclear weapons are symbols of superiority,” Seitenova said in her speech. “Peace and cooperation are dismissed as weak, as feminine. That is the mentality we must challenge.”
Her feminist perspective links nuclear weapons and patriarchy, arguing that both systems thrive on domination and power over others.
From the steppes to global advocacy
Author made a documentary of the 2018 conference in which Seitenova participated. Credit:INPS Japan
Born into a third-generation family affected by radiation exposure in Semey, Seitenova said her activism was inspired by “quiet endurance and the absence of open discussion.”
In 2018 she joined the Youth for CTBTO and Group of Eminent Persons (GEM) ‘Youth International Conference’ organized by the Kazakh government. During the five-day program, young representatives of nuclear-weapon states, non-nuclear and nuclear-dependent states together with nuclear disarmament experts traveled overnight by train from Astana to Kurchatov, visiting the former test site. “It was the first time I saw the land that shaped the history of my people,” she said.
She quotes Togzhan Kassenova’s atomic step And Ray Acheson bans the bomb and destroys the patriarchy as works that helped her articulate how nuclear policy and gender inequality are intertwined.
Shared suffering, shared hope
In October, Seitenova traveled to Japan to participate in the 24th World Congress of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in Nagasakimeeting with survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“Japan and Kazakhstan share the experience of nuclear suffering,” she said. “But we can turn that pain into dialogue – and peace.”
That spirit carried into the screening in Tokyo, where diplomats, journalists and peace activists discussed nuclear justice, gender equality and youth participation.
Turn pain into power
Through her organization, the Kazakh Nuclear Frontline Coalition (ASQAQQNFC), Seitenova works to connect nuclear-affected communities with policymakers who the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
“The fight for nuclear justice is not about the past – it is about the future,” she said. “It’s about making sure no one else has to live with the consequences of nuclear weapons.”
As applause filled the Toda Peace Memorial Hall, the resonance was unmistakable: a hall named after a man who condemned the bomb with the wind-scarred plains of Semey, where women’s voices are finally being heard.
This article is brought to you by INPS Japan in collaboration with Soka Gakkai Internationalin consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
INPS Japan
IPS an agency
© Inter Press Service (20251010182456) — All rights reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service
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