The message arrived on Sabera’s phone while she was in the middle of her usual workday at a girls’ primary school in Kabul. The 35-year-old teacher had been evaluating her students’ homework and answering their questions during the last minutes of class when she checked to see the latest news sent to the WhatsApp group for teachers at the school.
She was shocked by the message’s contents – the salaries of all women working in government institutions would have their salaries cut to 5,000 afghani a month. The sharp cut in salary was based on a new directive from Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban leader. His verbal order had been formally sent by the Taliban’s administrative office to all ministries in the country. In the school office, Sabera saw a written copy of this directive, confirming that the WhatsApp message had not been a rumour.
The impact of the pay cut would be severe on female teachers and other government workers. For Sabera, it meant an immediate 44 percent wage cut from her previous salary of 9,000 afghani a month. The loss of that 4,000 afghani each month means that it is impossible for Sabera to support her six-member family. Reflecting on the moment she received the message, she tells Zan Times, “Despair overwhelmed me. I thought to myself, my family is counting on me, and now how can I cover the household expenses with just 5,000 afghani?”
As more teachers in the WhatsApp group, which is composed of 200 teachers from several government schools, read the message, one suggested that they protest the Taliban’s decision. Others, including Sabera, welcomed and supported the idea. So Sabera and her colleagues held a protest in the school courtyard, deciding that they would continue their strike until the Taliban leader’s decree was reversed. This was their first protest experience, so they did not have any printed banners or slogans; they had only one demand: their salaries should not be cut. “We intended not to work until we achieved results. One of the teachers sent a video of our protest to a media outlet, and the news of the strike went public,” recalls Sabera.
As the teachers’ work stoppage continued, the school principal warned them that she had received a threatening call from the Taliban’s Intelligence Directorate telling her that if the teachers didn’t end the strike then the Taliban would imprison the teachers and cut off their reduced 5,000 afghani salaries. “The principal told us that if we didn’t stop the protests, we would be dismissed,” says Sabera. “Since she is under the authority of the Taliban and they had ordered her to report the protesting teachers, she said that if we continued the strike, she would give our names to them.”
The Taliban threat left Sabera with no option but to stop her protest as losing her job would worsen her family’s already dire financial situation. As well, being imprisoned would bring great disgrace to her and her family.
The taste of a small victory
As the Taliban’s order to reduce women’s salaries became public, thousands of employed women in the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Public Health in Kabul and other provinces protested the cut to their incomes. Like Sabera, they went on strike. The voices of protesting teachers and healthcare workers in the capital were so loud and forceful that their efforts gained widespread coverage through exiled and social media.
Zan Times found that female teachers in several government schools in Kabul, including Rahman Mina Girls’ High School and Chel Dokhtaran High School, gathered in the courtyards of their schools to demand a revocation of the decree reducing women’s salaries. The protests didn’t end there: doctors and administrative staff at hospitals, including the Zarghona Maternity Hospital, Children’s Health, Sheikh Zayed, and Wazir Akbar Khan, also went on a two-day strike.
Meanwhile, protests spread throughout Afghanistan. In Sar-e Pul province, Mursal and three other female teachers went on strike. The 33-year-old teacher at a government school earns around 9,000 afghani a month. Her salary is the primary source of income for her eight-member family as her husband’s freelance work is an unstable source of income. “When I found out about the decree, I was at work. I went home and didn’t return to school,” she tells Zan Times. “I called the school principal and said I wouldn’t come back. It’s better to stay home than work with such a meager salary.” Though all the teachers were discouraged, only Mursal and three others went on strike. “The school principal informed the Taliban’s education department, saying that some teachers refused to work for 5,000 afghani a month,” recounts Mursal. “Their response was that if we won’t teach, we’ll be dismissed, and they didn’t need us to work at all.” While this direct threat worried Mursal, she decided not to return to work until she was sure her salary wouldn’t be reduced.
Like with Sabera and Mursal, the Taliban used the threat of job termination and legal action to suppress the protests and strikes by female teachers and healthcare workers from becoming a nationwide problem. However, the fallout from the salary cut decision, including the absence of so many female employees from their jobs, eventually forced the Taliban to modify their decision, at least for active female employees in government offices. On July 8, 2024, the Taliban’s Ministry of Finance issued a written statement declaring that the salaries of those women would not be slashed to 5,000 afghani a month. As part of the statement reads: “Those female employees who are actively working within the administrative structure, and who, like their male counterparts, attend work daily or perform the duties outlined in their job descriptions, will continue to receive their full salaries and benefits, as specified in the attached table.”
Sabera was glad that the protests and strikes of female teachers and other government employees forced Mullah Hibatullah to retreat from his order to cut their salaries: “We all felt good. We were happy that our efforts yielded results. It felt like we had won something, even though it was our right. Despite this, due to fear of our superiors, we couldn’t express our happiness openly inside the school because we were banned and threatened, but in our hearts, we were all happy. All the teachers consider these protests and the fight as a source of pride.”
Women forced into house imprisonment
While some female teachers continue to be paid to do what they love: teach children, other women find it almost impossible to work and support their families under the misogynistic policies of the Taliban aimed at forcing them out of the workforce.
One of the teachers, Zohal who taught for nine years at a school in the capital of Sar-e Pul province. Before the Taliban’s return, she taught English, math, and physical education, but after the Taliban closed girls’ high schools and middle schools, she taught math to elementary students. In March 2022, she was dismissed.
She used to be the breadwinner for her six-member family. Now, they rely on the income generated by her brother, who is a plumber. That work pays only 300 afghani a day. “Sometimes there’s work, sometimes not,” Zohal explains. “He just started, and it’s hard for him. I used to be able to do so much for my parents, brother, and sisters, but now, unfortunately, I feel like a burden to them.”
For this report, Zan Times interviewed 19 women who are or have been government school teachers in Kabul, Jawzjan, Ghazni, Sar-e Pul, and Kandahar provinces. At least 14 are the primary breadwinners of their families and had earned between 6,000 and 15,000 afghani a month in the Republic era. Of the 19, nine had been told by the Taliban to stop coming to their government jobs and stay at home. These women, who are between 20 and 50 in age, had between three and 18 years of work experience.
Women who can find work often struggle to get paid what they are owed. In November 2023, UNICEF held a competitive exam to hire kindergarten teachers in an easter province. Maryam, a 36-year-old teacher with a decade of experience, passed all three stages of the exam, which were supervised by the Taliban’s education department and UNICEF. She was hired with a monthly salary of 13,000 afghani.
She worked for three months but was never paid. As her sister, Zarghona, tells Zan Times: “When my sister went to the district center to file a complaint, the Taliban officials told her that her salary was being paid to her mahram [a close male guardian]. But Maryam was unmarried and had no mahram. When she said she didn’t have one, they showed her the list of paid salaries, and it turned out that her salary was being received by the head of the provincial education department. When my sister confronted him, he denied everything.”
Zarghona, who is also a teacher, says that her sister took her complaint to the UNICEF project monitoring team, who confirmed that “her entire salary was being pocketed by the head of the education department and the school principal. My sister went back to the head of the education department, but he shamelessly said, ‘I hired you for this job, so your salary belongs to me.’”
After Maryam complained to a member of the UNICEF monitoring team and asked that her salary be paid directly to her, she was fired two days later, Zarghona tells Zan Times. “They only paid her two months’ salary and did nothing more. The Taliban education head dismissed her, and no one could do anything about it,” she says. The sisters had been responsible for supporting their 10-member family. Now, Zarghona is at a loss as to how she will cover their expenses with just her salary of 6,000 afghani a month.
Cutting women’s salaries isn’t a new strategy for this regime. Before the Taliban took over Afghanistan, women worked alongside men in government ministries and local agencies. That ended when the Taliban took over. Currently, women only work in limited roles within the Ministry of Public Health, Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Interior. Some women who haven’t officially been fired from their government jobs but were instead forced to stay at home are still required to go to their former workplaces on specific days set by the Taliban to sign attendance sheets. They are paid a fraction of their former salaries to do nothing. They take the money because any money is better than none. Effectively, they are in limbo.
Zohal no longer believes she will be able to teach again. She’s given up hope for the future of female teachers and students: “I studied with so much passion, worked hard to serve my community, but now I feel like I’m in a prison. Every day, this situation breaks me.”
The names in this article have been changed to protect their security. Sana Atif and Mahtab Safi are pseudonyms of Zan Times reporters in Afghanistan.
