Selling possessions and burning garbage: How women struggle to feed their families
Her eyes burn and her throat chokes from the smoke generated by ovens burning plastic and trash. Mahbouba coughs repeatedly as she shares her life of hardship. Every day, she bakes bread in the oven from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon. Mahbouba cannot afford to buy proper fuel, so every evening, she scavenges through trash in the evening to find anything flammable to heat the oven, and bake bread.
She makes five afghani a piece, just enough to make ends meet. She is a 35-year-old resident of the 9th district of Mazar-e-Sharif and the sole provider for her two daughters and a son. She raises her children alone after divorcing her husband, an abusive addict, four years ago. During the Republic era, she worked as a cook and cleaner for a government organization in the city. She lost her job a week before Mazar-e-Sharif fell to the Taliban.
With tearful eyes and a choked voice, Mahbouba shares her hardships: “Since the Taliban came, I lost my job and have faced extreme difficulties,” Mahbouba says, her eyes filled with tears. “From morning till night, I keep an eye on the door, hoping one of the neighbors will bring me some bread so I can bake it and earn some money. I charge five afghani per bread. I don’t have many customers – in one day, I might make 150 or 200 afghani.”
The bitter smoke from the oven causes her to cough continuously as she explains the cost of supporting her children. She pays 3,500 afghani per month in rent for their house. The costs of electricity, water, and her sick daughter’s medication often exceed her income: “My little daughter is 11 years old and has gallstones. Every month I take her to the doctor, and the cost of her treatment and medication is very high. With the bread I bake, I can barely make 200 afghani a day, which doesn’t solve my problems. I’ve sold the few things I had and used the money to pay for her treatment and the rent, as I was in a lot of debt.”
The walls of the house’s courtyard are raw. Mahbouba and her children sit on a single torn rug spread out on the floor. Apart from a few mattresses, pillows, and blankets, there’s little else in her home. She says her family only eats two meals a day, which are often just dry bread and tea: “When I see that I can’t provide a better life for my children, it breaks my heart. When I look at myself, so helpless under the rule of the Taliban, I suffer greatly.”
The struggle of Mahbouba to keep her family fed and housed is being endured by other single mothers in Afghanistan. Yasmin is a 29-year-old woman who is also a sole provider for her four children. She worked as a beautician in the same city as Mahbouba, Mazar-e-Sharif, before the Taliban shut down beauty salons. Yasmin had rented a small shop where she did makeup and hairstyling for her clients. This gave some colour to her life. Her life became increasingly difficult after the Taliban returned to power and imposed stricter and stricter restrictions on women’s work and activities.
After the Taliban banned beauty salons, Yasmin was forced to work secretly at home to support her family. She tells Zan Times that the Taliban came to her house several times. “The Taliban noticed the comings and goings of my clients and came to my house several times, warning me that if I kept doing this, they would imprison me. The last time they came, I had a client at home, and they entered the house, humiliated my client, and threw her out. They threatened me, saying this was my last warning and that I must stop because this work is blasphemy. So, I had to stop.”
That last threat from the Taliban to imprison her and seal her house occurred in December 2023. She felt she had no choice but to give up her work: “I was afraid that if I was sent to prison, my children would be left on the streets. That’s why I gave up my work. Going to prison is a huge disgrace. In Afghanistan, everything a woman does is considered a crime, so what should we women do? How are we supposed to support our children?”
“Under these conditions, the restrictions on women are so intense that I can’t even do makeup at home,” Yasmin explains. She abandoned her job as a beautician, instead finding work cleaning homes: “I go to neighbors’ houses, friends, relatives, and others for cleaning work. But people’s situations aren’t good enough to hire cleaners regularly, so maybe I can find work in two houses in a week. In this situation, it’s also hard for people to trust strangers; most won’t let an outsider into their home. If I clean all day, I might make 200 or 300 afghani per house. But this money doesn’t cover all the household necessities; managing life has become extremely difficult for me.”
Yasmin’s two younger children have become weak and thin due to a lack of proper nutrition. Two months ago, a doctor warned that they could suffer from even more severe malnutrition if their nutrition didn’t improve: “My two children are very sick and thin. When I took them to the doctor, he said they were extremely underweight, and if I don’t feed them properly, they will develop severe malnutrition.”
In a recent report, the World Food Programme (WFP), in a recent report, stated “Currently, 3.9 million people are suffering from acute malnutrition, including 2.8 million children under the age of five.” It forecasts that 12.4 million people in Afghanistan will face severe food insecurity from May to October this year, with 2.9 million of them in an emergency situation. Family incomes are so low that one-quarter of Afghanistan’s population goes to bed hungry, the WFP stated on social media.
Beheshta, 27, worked for a local media outlet in Balkh province before the Taliban took over. The sole provider of her family of three has been unemployed for more than three years now. She’s able to make a little money doing embroidery or sewing clothes. “I used to sew a simple piece of clothing for 100 afghani. Now, because I have no income and there are many tailors around, I sew it for 70 afghanis. If I don’t, I won’t have customers. On top of that, I have to spend three to four days doing the embroidery for a collar just to get 50 afghani from the shopkeeper,” she tells Zan Times. “My income is very low. I can’t meet my household expenses. I can only afford to buy dry bread. My living conditions are terrible.”
There are many women like Mahbouba, Yasmin, and Beheshta in Afghanistan, who have sold their household items and are struggling to feed their children under the Taliban regime. They know there is little hope of anything changing soon.
Mahboubeh’s landlord recently asked her to vacate the house. The demands from real estate agents are complicating her search for a new rental: “They want a male guardian to vouch for me; I have no one. I beg and plead with strange men and neighbors, but they don’t know me well enough and won’t vouch for me. After my divorce, my relationship with my brothers has also soured. Life in Afghanistan has become nothing but suffering, pain, and hardship for women heads of households.”
Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees and writer. Mahsa Bahmanish is a pseudonym for a freelance journalist in Afghanistan.