Under Taliban power, Afghan entrepreneurs take their destiny into their own hands

When Zainab Ferozi saw the women around her falling into poverty following the return of Taliban rule, she gathered her savings and set up a carpet factory. Like her, many Afghan women start their own business to meet their needs and those of their employees.

Eight months after the fall of Kabul, Ms. Ferozi invested 20,000 Afghanis, around 275 euros, raised by giving weaving classes, to open her workshop in Herat, in the west.

Today, she told AFP with pride, she “covers all household expenses” because her husband, a day laborer, struggles to work.

Its fifteen weavers are former workers who lost their jobs or students affected by the ban on girls studying beyond the age of 12. Under this “gender apartheid” according to the UN, the employment rate of women in the public service fell from 26% “to zero”.

Touba Zahid, 28 years old and mother of one child, also had to bounce back after being banned from her literature faculty. In the basement of her house, she makes jams and condiments.

– Boom at the Chamber of Commerce –

“I joined the business world to create jobs and so that women could have a salary,” this petite Afghan woman told AFP, smiling among her employees in white coats.

Together, they present the jars of fig jam and other pickled vegetables which will be sold on site because women are less and less allowed in public.

If some run stalls, the markets are dominated by men and “there are no salespeople to sell or promote their products”, laments Fariba Noori, head of the Women’s Chamber of Commerce (AWCCI) in Kabul.

Women also struggle to get supplies because they are no longer allowed to make long trips without a male chaperone from their family, a “mahram”, a challenge in a country where four decades of war have left many widows and orphans. .

Finding “a mahram to buy their raw materials” is a challenge, assures Ms. Noori.

Despite everything, the AWCCI is seeing its membership explode: 10,000 today, mainly SMEs, compared to “600 large companies” in 2021, reports the one who joined the employers 12 years ago.

– “Without comparison” –

Khadija Mohammadi launched her “Khadija” carpet and sewing brand two years ago. A professor made unemployed by the new Taliban laws, she now employs more than 200 women.

“I am proud every time a woman helps another to become independent,” says this well-dressed Afghan woman who says she pays her employees between 5,000 and 13,000 Afghanis, or 70 and 180 euros per month.

One of them, Qamar Qasimi, was still working last year in a beauty salon that has since closed.

Today, this 24-year-old mother admits to weaving carpets for 5,000 Afghanis because she has “no other choice” to provide for the needs of the eight members of her family.

“As a beautician, I could earn between 3,000 and 7,000 Afghanis by doing the makeup and hair of a single bride. It’s without comparison,” she says, among busy women.

It’s not just beauty salons that have closed. Most of the spaces where women could meet followed.

To try to offer them a space to relax despite everything, Zohra Gonish, 20, opened a restaurant reserved for women in Badakhshan, in the northeast bordering China.

– “Psychological disorders” –

“Women can come for events or to eat. All our employees are women so that our customers are comfortable,” she explains.

If she speaks proudly of her project, in 2022 Zohra Gonish had to fight to impose it in a country where the share of women in the world of work is ten times lower than the world average.

She insisted for a week with her father who finally gave in when she explained that she wanted to “be financially independent but also help him”, while a third of the 45 million inhabitants of Afghanistan survive on bread and butter. tea.

It was also to help his parents that Soumaya Ahmadi joined Mrs. Ferozi’s carpet factory at barely 15 years old.

Deprived of school and “depressed”, she wanted to leave the house at all costs.

“At home, I was angry. Now we work and it makes us feel good, our psychological problems have disappeared,” she declares.

With her salary, she wants to ensure that her two brothers will not be deprived of education.

“As schools are closed to girls, I work in their place,” says Soumaya Ahmadi.

“I tell them to study so they can do something with their lives.”

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