By: Mohammad Rahimi
At least five small factories owned by female entrepreneurs have provided over 100 jobs for women in Daman district, outside Kandahar city. Some women do embroidery, making handcrafts, clothes and dresses. Others produce shampoo and dishwashing liquids.
Kandahar is one of the most conservative provinces, where women are almost completely absent from public life. But these women are defying social norms, working outside their homes to feed their families.
Most women working in these factories live in extreme poverty like Nooria who works to support a family of 17.
Nooria makes 5,000 Afghani monthly, an amount equal to about 50 USD, which isn’t good enough for her large family. That is the reason she also works as a maid to clean private houses to supplement her income. Only one of her sons works as a daily laborer to support the family financially.
“Life has been difficult for us,” said 40-year-old Nooria, who works in a tailoring factory in Daman district.
She added she lost a son to the conflict one year ago in Kandahar. He was killed in a roadside bomb explosion.
Another woman, Zarmina, who also works in the tailoring factory, said she has 11 children, ten of whom are living with her. Her husband is a boot polisher whose income isn’t sufficient to support the family.
Zarmina makes 3,000 Afghani as a tailor and she also works as a cleaner part-time.
Afghanistan has become one of the worst places to be a woman after the Taliban’s return to power last year. Millions of girls are out of school. Thousands of women have not been allowed to return to work. The Taliban have imposed draconian restrictions on women including a travel ban without a male family member, and compulsory head-to-toe burqa.
The situation of women in Kandahar is even worse. The Taliban restrictions coupled with a conservative local tradition have made the province one of the worst, if not the worst, places for women in the country.
Despite all these restrictions, women entrepreneurs run factories to generate income for themselves and dozens of other unprivileged women.
Razia, 26, said she founded her tailoring factory five years ago, and now she hires 50 women who produce embroideries, traditional clothes, and hijabs. She said she held exhibitions with the help of a foreign NGO to sell her products before the fall of the former government. But she has not been able to establish any contact with the Taliban’s new government to ask for permission to reopen the exhibitions.
“They did not even allow me to enter the provincial governor’s office,” she said, referring to the Taliban.
Not only female entrepreneurs of Daman district provide employment opportunities for the impoverished women, they themselves are striving to become financially independent.
Razia is an example of how women can thrive. She makes 20,000 Afghani per month – about 200 USD — a significant amount for an average Afghan family at a time when millions do not have enough to eat.
Another woman who owns a shampoo and dishwashing liquid production factory in Daman district is 40-year-old Saqijaan. She said she borrowed about 300 USD when she started her business four years ago. Now, she has 15 employees.
“I have hired poor women who begged in the past,” she said. “I told them to come and learn to work and make a living for themselves.”
