Embroidery: A feminine art struggling to survive in Afghanistan
By Farshid Aram*
Holding a delicate needle threaded with embroidery silk, Marjan slowly and gracefully inserts it into a piece of fabric designed to become a traditional man’s shirt.
“Embroidery is part of the training that a girl should learn during childhood; mothers usually provide this training so that when their daughters get engaged, they sew a shirt for their fiancé,” explains Marjan*, a 33-year-old embroiderer in Kandahar province. A widow since her husband died in a bombing six years ago, she uses her skills with a needle and thread to cover the living expenses of her and her five children.
The art that Marjan learned during her childhood is now being passed down to the next generation. Her eldest daughter, 14-year-old Najma, collaborates on creating the embroidery.
Embroidered clothing is commonly worn in the region. For men, the most common designs are rectangular, triangular, royal, and round collars, while women’s clothing is often embroidered around the neck, sleeves, and trouser hems of clothes. Because the amount of embroidery can vary greatly, the price of such designs can range from 5,000 to 30,000 afghani.
Marjan’s embroidered fabrics were in high demand, both domestically and internationally, before the Taliban took over in 2021, generating a monthly income of between 30,000-45,000 afghani. The regime change brought significant changes to Marjan’s income and job as the country’s financial struggles caused a decline in demand, which in turn hurt their income, creating a significant blow to a family without a breadwinner.
“In the past, I had many customers both domestically and internationally who placed many orders, but now I can rarely sell my embroidered fabrics,” Marjan says. She isn’t alone. Zan Times interviewed skilled embroidery workers who all tell the same story: that their incomes are much lower now due to lack of demand. They say that economic problems facing the people after the Taliban’s takeover mean they don’t have money to spend on items like embroidered clothing or handicrafts. The situation is so bad that some are abandoning the profession altogether.
Kandahar province has been badly hit, as embroidery is a popular feminine profession in many of its provinces. For instance, many women in the villages of the Shahkot district are embroiderers who used to make good incomes before the Taliban’s takeover. One of those women in Shahkot district is Muhadesa*, 29, who supplements her husband’s small income as a farmer by working at a workshop producing embroidered clothes.
“For every garment we embroider, we receive 200 to 300 afghani,” she explained. “This gave us an income of 10,000 to 12,000 afghani per month. After the Taliban came to power, our work decreased.” The embroidery markets were closed for the first three months after the Taliban takeover as traders fled the country, Muhadesa tells Zan Times. Though embroidery work has restarted, her income has yet to return to pre-August 2021 levels. The domestic market has completely cooled down, and there aren’t as many international customers as before.
Adding to their difficulties, Taliban edicts have restricted the ability of female embroiderers to earn an income. For instance, Muhadesa says that women can’t take their embroidered goods to the market for sale. Instead, they have to bring a male guardian. In addition, they aren’t allowed to negotiate with male shopkeepers.
The traditional embroidery and handicraft industry of embroidery in various parts of Afghanistan has relied on women’s labour and creativity. In the central province of Ghor, Somayia*, a 25-year-old woman, is an entrepreneur who produces traditional and local clothing, many of which feature embroidery.
“We used to have many customers, mostly domestic, but now due to the increased economic issues, nobody even considers our products,” Somayia complains. Her old customers are now buying similar products produced by industrial embroidery machines in Afghanistan or Pakistan, which cost one-tenth the price of hand-embroidered clothes but lack their quality.
Some embroiderers are continuing to find buyers for their works in Europe and Australia. Forouzan*, a 23-year-old woman in Herat, sells her embroidered clothes through her Facebook and Instagram pages. Online platforms are the only way to attract customers because Taliban restrictions means she cannot have a shop in the Herat market.
She creates clothing priced from 5,000 to 50,000 afghani. Though she’s sold some of her products in Germany and Australia, the lack of an international postal system in Afghanistan means she’s had to design an alternative shipping system to get her products out of the country: “We must wait for a traveller to go abroad who can deliver our goods, and this might take weeks or even months.”
*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees and writer. Farshid Aram is the pseudonym of a journalist in Afghanistan.
