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Opinion
TOKYO, Oct 10 2025 (IPS) –
Toda Peace Memorial Hall. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The screening room at the Toda Peace Memorial Hall in Tokyo fell silent as Kazakh filmmaker and human rights advocate 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 NGO Network for Nuclear Weapons Abolition (JANA).
The hall itself is symbolic in Japan’s peace movement. It is named after Josei Toda, the second president of the Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai, who in 1957 made his historic Declaration Calling for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons before 50,000 youth members. That appeal has become a moral pillar of Soka Gakkai’s global campaign for peace and disarmament.
Reclaiming Women’s Voices
Semipalatinsk Former Nuclear Weapon Test site. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri
“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—meaning “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 earlier films that focused on physical devastation and disability caused by nuclear testing, Jara explores the unseen and intergenerational impacts: the stigma, the psychological scars, and the inherited fear of bearing children.
“Most films show Semey as ‘the most nuked place on Earth.’ I wanted to show resilience instead of fear—to reclaim our story in our own voice,” she said.
Aigerim Seitenova Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri
Breaking the Silence
Seitenova’s personal connection to the issue began with humiliation.
As a university student in Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan, when she introduced herself as being from Semey, a classmate mockingly asked if she had “a tail.”
“That moment stayed with me,” she recalled. “It made me realise that nuclear harm is not only physical. It lives on in prejudice and silence.”
That experience would later drive her to create a film that breaks that silence.
Patriarchy and Nuclear Power
In Jara, women appear not as passive victims but as active participants in their communities, confronting the legacies of secrecy and discrimination.
“In militarised societies, nuclear weapons are symbols of superiority,” Seitenova said in her speech.