By Mehtab Safi
In an effort toward consolidating its gender apartheid in Afghanistan, the Taliban ordered all local and international none-governmental organizations (NGOs) not to allow women to work in these institutions on Saturday, December 24. The Taliban warned that if an NGO refuses to implement their edict, their licence to operate in Afghanistan will be revoked.
The ban on women working for NGOs isn’t the first time the Taliban have ordered females out of the workplace. As soon as they returned to power, the Taliban demanded that women in the public sector not go to work.
Zan Times spoke to women who used to work in the public sector and who lost their jobs on order of the Taliban about their experiences and their current circumstances.
Thirty-five-year-old Rahila Hakimi* lives in an old mud house with her eight-member family in the village of Koh Gonbad in Sheberghan, the capital city of Jawzjan province. Before the Taliban took over, she worked for more than 10 years in a government department that provided services to women. She earned 13,000 afghanis a month. With this small income, she paid her rent and took care of her elderly parents who live with her. Her husband’s job of driving a city rickshaw also supported their family’s expenses by driving a city rickshaw. Her children went to school. She was satisfied with her life.
Then the Taliban regained power. They told her and other women in her office not to come to work. Their salaries were reduced to 2,500 afghanis a month. In August 2022, the Taliban fired her and 40 other women, replacing them with people affiliated with the Taliban.
A few days after their dismissal, Rahila and some of the women went to complain at the Taliban provincial governor’s office. In addition to not addressing their requests, the Taliban threatened them with arrest.
“The Taliban told us that if you had dignity, you would not come here every day. None of you are allowed to enter the door of the governor’s office anymore. It has been decided that women should not work outside the home,” she tells Zan Times.
All the efforts of Rahila and her colleagues were unsuccessful. She has been unemployed for several months now. Her husband earns 100 afghanis a day with his rickshaw. With this money, they can only afford to buy dry bread. With their savings exhausted, Rahila is borrowing from her friends. She’s worried about the coming winter. “Many times we sleep hungry. I don’t know what to do with this unemployment. I think so much, sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy,” she says.
Rahila is one of tens of thousands of female government workers fired by the Taliban and now facing poverty and destitution. Thirty-three-year-old Atifa* has a similar story. The economist used to have a monthly salary of 15,000 afghanis before the Taliban took over, and she and her husband and one child had a relatively good life. But after the Taliban took over again, her life changed. Atifa was fired from her job in August. She says that her family is in a desperate financial situation.
Three months before the Taliban regained power, she borrowed 150,000 afghanis from a private bank to buy a car for her husband. She used her house deed as collateral but thieves broke into their home that night and took all their money. She repaid the bank loan by taking a loan from one of her husband’s relatives, but now she has to find 10,000 afghanis a month for that debt.
These days, Atifa is busy cleaning and washing clothes in people’s houses to repay this loan. “When I’m told to clean the clothes properly or do the same work twice, I tear up,” she says. “I am an educated woman and worked as a professional for many years and I never imagined that I would live like this one day.”
The experiences of these two working women is the most common narrative of educated women who once worked in Afghan government departments. Now, they are a part of 95 percent of the population who are said to be unable to meet the basic expenses of their lives, according to a Gallup poll. The poll also notes that “the percentage who say it is a bad time to find a job in their communities soared to a record 92% in 2022.” The impact extends beyond their own families: according to UN statistics, removing women from work costs Afghanistan at least US$1 billion annually.
*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees.
