By Ziba Balkhi
Shaima Rastagar thought she had found her life’s calling when she began teaching computer science to university students. The 26-year-old enjoyed the early morning starts to get to Balkh University in Mazar-e-Sharif. She had been a student herself at the university before graduating with a Computer Science degree.
But those days are now mere memories. Instead, she stems raisins for a meagre income to support a family of four – her mother, younger brother, and sister.
“It’s extremely exhausting. I get very tired and have headaches, but I have no choice. Earning money has become very difficult in these conditions,” she told Rukhshana Media.
“From the time I start work in the morning until 11:00PM in the evening, I make 100 afghanis (US$1.20), but there’s no other option [to earn an income]. With that, I can buy some onions and potatoes so that we don’t go hungry.”
The drastic change in Shaima’s life and outlook happened after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan and banned women from working in government and private institutions. It’s been almost three years since the ban and the desperate fallout continues to ripple through the country and its families.
“When I was [working] at the university, life was very good. I made around 6,000 afghanis a month (US$100). I also taught math to girls at a private school, and our living expenses were well covered. But since the university and schools were closed, I became unemployed and helpless. Life has become much harder,” Shaima said.
She appears outwardly calm and quiet, but her frequent grasping and cracking of knuckles reveals an inner restlessness.
After two years of stemming raisins, Shaima said the family still lives hand to mouth.
“I never imagined a day like this. I thought maybe I would progress day by day, but it turned out the opposite. Winter has come, and I don’t know where we will get fuel,” she said.
“We are also in debt for the rent and electricity bills. With stemming raisins, getting enough food to eat has become a real struggle.”
Balkh is one of the key provinces in Afghanistan for dried fruit production, and raisins are among the most famous. Many women and girls have turned to manual labor after being cut off from academic or professional jobs by the Taliban.
In an old Mazar-e-Sharif courtyard with mud walls and rooms whose floors are covered with plastic carpets, about 20 women and girls are busy stemming raisins to clean the produce for large factories.
They come from various backgrounds, including schoolgirls and university students who have been forced to stay at home by the Taliban decrees, as well as women who are heads of households.
Nilab*, 35, works alongside her two daughters, aged 16 and 19, stemming raisins every day. Her daughters were in grades seven and nine when the Taliban closed the schools.
“For now, since schools are closed to girls, my daughters have no choice but to do this work so that we can gather a few bites of food together. Otherwise, I want my daughters to continue their education, go to university, find good jobs, and not have a life like mine. I wish the Taliban would reopen the schools and universities,” she said.
Nilab got married when she was just 14. She fears that her daughters will face the same fate as hers and be forced into early marriage and illiteracy.
“I didn’t get an education, and this is my situation now. I have no skills to do anything else; I didn’t go to university to find a good job. I don’t want my daughters to be illiterate like me and do this exhausting work.
“We all stem raisins every day, and it’s good. Day and night, this is our work. My husband has been in Iran for three years, working as a day laborer there.”
When the Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education announced in December 2022 that women and girls could not continue their studies at public and private universities “until further notice,” Nargis* was a law and political science student at Balkh University.
The 23-year-old fell into the grip of depression during the days aimlessly stuck at home. She had aspired to become a prosecutor, but now that future was closed to her by Taliban decree.
She said she turned to stemming raisins to try and shake the depression.
“Staying at home in these conditions is painful. I constantly wonder what will happen to my future, what will happen to my education, what will happen to my life and dreams,” Nargis said.
“Thinking about all of these things increases my mental and emotional pressure, and my depression grew every day. To escape from depression and because I had no source of income, I decided to stem raisins.”
Now, instead of going to university every morning, she sits in a corner of her house and stems raisins until late at the evening.
“I work day and night so that I don’t have to think about anything else, and my entire focus is just on stemming.”
Nargis says that sometimes while working, when she remembers her lessons and the happy memories of her time at university, her heart fills with grief and pain.
Life before and after the Taliban is divided into “white and black” for 22-year-old Arifa.
The mother-of-one said even before the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, her life was already marked by the tragedy of an arranged marriage at the age of 15 when her husband made her leave school. However, she said her challenges, which had always been tied to poverty, have become even harder since the Taliban came to power.
She said that working long hours for only 30 afghanis per day is truly unfair.
“There are three of us at home. I’ve been stemming for two years now, because of unemployment. My husband is a day laborer,” she said.
“If he does find work, he earns only 200 Afghanis (around $3) for the whole week.”
Note*: Names are changed due to security reasons.
