The crisis has hit all businesses hard, but the difficulties for women are compounded by Taliban curbs on their movement including a ban on travel without a "mahram" - a male relative to act as a chaperone.ĭressmaker Wajiha Sekhawat, 25, used to go to Pakistan and Iran to buy fabrics for her tailoring studio in the western city of Herat, from where she creates outfits for clients inspired by celebrities' social media posts. The Taliban takeover triggered the meltdown after foreign governments cut funding and froze the country's bank assets. Others, like Haidari, were running cafes and restaurants – also considered a male domain in Afghanistan, given the taboos around women interacting with men outside the home.Ī few Afghan women continue to run large enterprises from abroad in sectors including mining, logistics and import-export.īut many others have closed their businesses amid Afghanistan's severe economic crisis. Most businesses set up by women prior to 2021 were informal cottage industries like bakeries, but they had increasingly made inroads into traditionally male sectors such as IT, media services, exports, travel agencies and even construction. The Taliban's return to power has rapidly reversed two decades of internationally backed efforts to boost economic opportunities for women that saw donors pour several billion dollars into empowerment programmes. "If the Taliban try to stop me I'll tell them they must pay me and pay these women," she said.
The centre, which also makes men's clothing, rugs and home decor items, employs about 50 women who earn $58 a month. "I don't want Afghan girls to forget their knowledge and then, in a few years, we will have another illiterate generation," she said, referring to the women and girls deprived of education during the Taliban's last rule from 1996 to 2001.
Her handicrafts enterprise now subsidises an underground school providing 200 girls with lessons in maths, science, and English. The profits were ploughed into a drugs rehabilitation centre she set up nearby.īut a few days after the Taliban seized the country, gunmen and locals threw out the rehabilitation centre's patients, destroyed her restaurant and looted the furniture, Haidari said. Haidari, 44, used to own a lively Kabul restaurant that was known for its music and poetry evenings and was popular with intellectuals, writers, journalists and foreigners. 15, has banned women from most jobs, barred girls from secondary and higher education, and imposed harsh restrictions on their freedom of movement.īut thousands of women continue to run micro-enterprises from their homes - which officials broadly allow, while others like Haidari oversee more clandestine businesses.
The Taliban administration, which marks two years in power on Aug.
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