By Elyas Ahmadi
“Only a few wedding halls are safe,” Shahla Sekandari says. “Wherever I have gone, I have been offered illegal affairs or sex outside marriage.”
The 26-year-old has been working as a waitress in Kabul wedding hotels for four years. The wedding ceremonies are divided into two sections for male and female guests. But that doesn’t protest the waitresses.
Shahla has found them to be dangerous and distressing workplaces, where female staff risk sexual harassment, verbal humiliation, and even physical assault from male colleagues.
She has been the head of a group of 12 waitresses for three years, entertaining the girls and women at segregated wedding meals. They have no official contract with any hotel or wedding hall. But when a manager calls the head of a group, they have to show up for work. Shala says three girls in her group turned to waitressing after the gates of schools and universities were closed to females.
In an interview with Rukhshana Media she shared stories of frequent harassment and sexual abuse by hotel managers, including demands for sex.
“First, when you go to work, they ask you all your details. For example, why do you work, do you have a husband or not,” she says. “Later, when they find out that we have to work because of economic pressure, they suggest an illicit relationship.”
Sexual demands are made over the phone when the waitresses are booked or in person when they arrive.
“They usually ask for the leader of the group at the hotel resort in person; Or if there are few guests, they ask for a part of the partitioned hall,” she says. “Sometimes they ask you to their private office, when you go, they ask you for sex.”
Owners and managers are the worst abusers. But Shahla has come across cases where even low-ranking employees try to pressure girls for sex. And all try to punish women who say no.
About three months ago, the manager of a wedding hall asked Shahla for sex on the phone in exchange for work and more points.
“They pay 1500 to 2000 Afghanis ($17-23) USD per night. Again, if someone accepts, they have VIP rooms,” she says. “The manager told me that if I agree to have sex with him, he would give me two thousand Afghanis.”
Zarin Muradi*, a member Shahla’s group, said the owner of one wedding hall told them they would have to bring extra women for sex.
“He called one night and said they need 12 people. He asked to bring three more people to do those things. He said ‘if you don’t, we won’t give you work’. We didn’t accept his precondition, so we were not asked to work there.”
Eighteen months ago Zarin was busy delivering food to a wedding hall when the owner publicly harassed her. “Right there on the stairs where we were taking the trays from the children, the head of the hotel came and hugged me,” she says. “I got scared, I ran another side and told him not to do that.”
Zarin and Shahla say they have seen some women giving in to the demands to keep their jobs. One waitress in dire economic circumstances repeatedly submitted to sex with employers and male colleagues.
Hotels and wedding halls in Kabul have a union. Despite repeated calls, none of the union officials would comment on the women’s claims.
The Taliban have banned women from working in public and private offices, with the exception of limited work in education, health, shopkeeping, and hospitality. They can only work in the women’s sections of hotels.
The Taliban have also abolished government institutions that defended the rights of women, especially women workers.
According to the statistics of the National Office of Statistics and Information (NSIA) in 2019, 26% of the civil service employees in the Republic period were women. With the Taliban’s control over Afghanistan, almost all these women have become unemployed.
Before the Taliban came to power, Shirindokht* was a 10th grade student at Asif Mayil high school in Kabul city. Now 19 years old, she’s a member of Shahla Sekandri’s group.
Shirindokht used to go to work with her older sister but now goes alone. Her sister could not continue this work because of a physical disability.
Shirindokht says it is one of the hardest jobs available. She sometimes gets severe headache and back pain.
“When distributing food, I have to rush a tray for ten people,” she says. “We must run together until the party is over. That’s why I get headaches and backaches.”
For Shirindokht, the lack of a healthy work environment is another serious challenge ahead.
“One day six months ago, one of the employees of the wedding hall smoked hashish inside the kitchen,” she says. “I used to work there, and I was very scared of that person.”
Poverty and suffering of being homebound
Twenty-two-year-old Najia Shams* was a student at Kabul Polytechnic University when the Taliban closed the universities to girls. She had only two semesters left to finish a bachelor’s of computer science at the university.
When she was forced to stay at home, her family’s poverty forced her to start working in wedding halls.
According to the annual report of the World Bank, which was published a few days ago, poverty is widespread in Afghanistan and almost the entire population does not have access to enough food due to low income.
“Almost two years ago, I said I was going to work as a waitress, but my family did not allow me,” Najia says. “There came a time when we didn’t have bread at home, then my parents asked me to go and do it.”
She now receives 300 afghanis for every 8 to 11 hours of work working at weddings.
Nazanin Nawa*,15 is another student of a private school in Kabul, who now works in a wedding hall with her sister Zarin.
Nazanin says that she sometimes cries remembering her school and her classmates and is desperate to go back. But extreme poverty has forced her and her sister to work in wedding halls.
“Once last year our situation was very bad during the winter. Once this year, during Ramadan, we could not find anything to eat in our house except for dry bread,” she says. “I wish there was at least enough dry bread.”
The girls who spoke to Rukhshana said their reputations have been tarnished by the actions of men, any girl working in a hotel or wedding risks being labelled a prostitute by strangers and the men who work around them.
*Note: In this report, pseudonyms have been chosen to protect the security of the interviewees.
