By: Raha
Khadija put on a baggy abaya, wrapped a scarf around her head, and wore a cap over it. Her face was covered with a mask and sunglasses.
She stood beside her orange cart outside Kabul university, waiting for the customers to stop by and get an ice cream to cool down on a hot summer day
Kabul summer is scorching. The temperature often rises above 100 fahrenheit. But Khadija has to cover her entire body and face while pushing the ice cream cart from dawn to dusk. If she doesn’t cover fully, she could be in trouble. The Taliban may even punish or stop her from working.
She said she is a university graduate but she couldn’t find an office job. She is now selling ice cream to feed her family of five.
“The situation of the job market gets worse everyday,” Khadija, 29, said “All people are struggling to find a mouthful of food.”
,The economy is on the verge of a total collapse following Taliban takeover, with millions not having enough food to eat.
The United Nations Development Programme or UNDP warned in March that 97 percent of Afghanistan’s population could be living below the poverty line by the middle of this year, if proper actions aren’t taken.
Khadija’s family, too, is living in a dire economic situation.
“Poverty is surging in the city, and it has plagued my family too,” she added.
Since returning to power, nearly a year ago, the Taliban have imposed a number of restrictive regulations on women. Full hijab has become compulsory. Most working women were driven out of the workforce. And schoolgirls of secondary education were banned from returning to their classes.
Khadija was hired by Mr. Kolfi, an ice cream company, around a month ago, and she is the only one working in the entire family, making around 9,000 Afghani monthly, an amount about 100 USD.
Abdul Hamid Mubarez, the manager of Mr. Qolfi, said he recruited six women including Khadija to sell ice cream after many women came and asked him to hire them.
“The recent changes in the country have affected a lot of our compatriots, many of them are women,” Mubarez said. “Many women applied for jobs in this company recently because of the worsening economy and high rate of male unemployment.”
The women ice cream sellers know that the only way for them to continue working is to fully comply with the strict Taliban’s hijab code, even if it causes immense discomfort.
They and their employer don’t want to give any excuse for the Taliban’s religious police to ban the company from hiring more women employees.
“To make sure the Emirate isn’t creating obstacles for our female employees, we have told them to dress in accordance with the Taliban’s hijab regulation,” Mubarez said, adding that he plans to create more job opportunities for women in his company.
Shogofa, 36, is another woman who works for Mr. Qolfi.
“Selling ice cream is a hard labor job,” she said, “When I go home in the evenings, my back and legs are in pain, and I get so tired that I can’t do anything else at home.”
Shogofa isn’t her real name. She requested to use a pseudonym to protect her identity.
Khadija said the Taliban aren’t so happy about her working outside home, even when she fully complies with their hijab rules. The religious police have told her not to sell ice cream in male dominated environments.
She said most of her customers are women and children anyway.
Sana, a female student at Medical University, is one of Khadija’s regular customers.
“Her bravery inspires other women to fight against all the existing crises,” Sana said about Khadija when she came to buy an ice cream, “And this is a strong punch to the mouth of oppressive rulers.”
“We women should join hands to support each other,” she added.
