By Ellaha Rasa
Thirty-three-year-old Maryam Ayani has turned the basement of her house into a carpet weaving workshop with an area of 170 square meters Karbas Basin area in district 9th of Herat city. She has provided work for at least 30 women in the workshop.
While the sunlight from the window has lit up the workshop space, three to four women are combing behind each carpet weaving machine. The sound of women’s shoulders has broken the silence of the workshop.
There are women and girls from all spectrums who skillfully tie the threads of the carpet using hooks and fast-hand wheels. From girls who left school and university to women who are the sole breadwinners of their families.
Fourteen-year-old Sitara is the youngest member of the carpet weaving workshop. A part of the family’s expenses is on Sitara’s shoulders because two years ago her father became disabled in both legs during construction work and became housebound.
Every day from 8 am to 1 pm, she hummer the knots as if she gives a new life to the flowers of the carpet with her hands.
Last year she was a sixth-grade student at Hawz Karbas School. But due to the closure of school gates for girls and in consultation with her family, she has turned to the art of carpet weaving.
“I have been an apprentice in the workshop for two months,” she tells Rukhshana Media. “This is a good art that I will support my household expenses by learning.”
Sitara’s family told her to think about learning a new art and to get rid of the hope of going to school. “My mother said, ‘If the Taliban allow girls to go to school, you will not be able to go to school because of poverty’.”
Fatima Yaqoob, 38, is one of the carpet weavers of the production workshop. She says that due to unemployment and economic problems, she weaves carpets for $11 dollars and 17 cents a day. “During the month of Ramadan, from the morning I arrive, I am busy weaving carpets till one o’clock in the afternoon. What should I do, my husband works in Iran,” says Mrs. Yaqoob. “But with the $23 dollars that he sends monthly, that’s not even enough to buy bread.”
Fatima is the mother of five girls and one boy and lives in a rented house in Howz Karbas area. She has been weaving carpets for more than a year.
This art was also inherited by her daughter. Currently, she has brought her daughter, who is a high school graduate, to the carpet weaving workshop for training. “She studied for twelve years, and that’s enough studying for a girl,” she says. “Currently, my daughter has become a professional carpet weaver and works alone on a carpet.”
Next to Fatima, 35-year-old Bibi Gul, a mother of five, is also busy weaving traditional carpets and started carpet weaving five months ago, just when poverty in Afghanistan spread more.
With cracked hands and a broken appearance, Bibi Gul seems to have seen a lot of bitterness in her life. She does not want to be photographed and is reluctant even to be interviewed.
She says that her husband was working in a telecommunication company; However, 9 years ago, during work, on Herat-Kandahar Road, her husband’s car hit a roadside mine and died. At that time, when she was five months pregnant, Bibi Gol was left alone with her four sons and a girl.
After her husband’s death, Bibi Gul started tailoring to provide bread to her children, and her two teenage sons each became mechanical apprentices for a small amount of money.
With the fall of the government in the hands of the Taliban, Bibi Gul’s two sons, like thousands of other Afghans, became unemployed and homebound, and out of necessity, they took the path of immigration through smuggling to Iran in order to prepare bread for their family.
“I pray for them every moment so that they don’t get arrested and deported, thank God that this hasn’t happened yet,” she says. “My sons are busy working in a mechanic workshop during the day, they got a room for themselves at night.”
Maryam Ayani started the carpet weaving workshop five years ago with around $70 dollars.
Currently, she has provided work opportunities for 30 women carpet weavers in four workshops, through which they provide their living expenses.
Among the employees of the workshop, there are also educated girls who are deprived of education and have stayed at home due to restrictions imposed by the Taliban.
A 30-year-old lady introduces herself as Rahmani. She is the head of a family of five. She has a master’s degree in physics from Iran and has worked as a teacher in universities and private schools for more than ten years. However, with the issuance of the order from the Taliban prohibiting her from working, she has become unemployed and housebound.
The Ministry of Economy of the Taliban, in a letter dated December 4 of last year, ordered all domestic and foreign institutions operating in the country to stop the activities of female employees until further notice.
“I was working in a private university with a salary of $205 and I had recently been employed in an NGO with a salary of 950 US dollars, but I was deprived of the right to work by order of the Taliban,” she says. “And I am currently working in the carpet factory as an administrative secretary with the women’s union of carpet weavers.”
Rahmani works full-time in a workshop that is not in her area of expertise with a salary of around $100 dollars. She says that the conditions were imposed on her. “I studied for 18 years in the hope of a better life, but now I have to work with 1/15 amount of money I used to work.”
The Carpet Weaving Women’s Union has been launched in Herat province with the initiative of 200 women artisans. Maryam Ayani, head of the union, says, “The Carpet Weaving Women’s Union was first formed with the plan of Abrar Institute and the distribution of registration forms by the institution for business women in Herat, and among the applicants, the form of 200 women was approved, and then with the election of the president, deputy and department officers were elected.”
Although seven months have passed since the establishment of the union, however, currently, the members of the union reach 1,200 people who are working in 30 workshops in Herat province.
“In the past, our productions were few; But we used to export a lot, now there is a lot of production, but we cannot export,” she says. “At the moment, our work is limited to the orders we receive.”
The astonishing increase in the labor force and lack of an export market in the last two years has been unprecedented. There is a concern that with the continuation of the current trend, carpet artisans will not invest in the art and a large population of women carpet weavers will be unemployed.
Under the shadow of the black market
Maryam Ayani says that due to the closure of the air corridor and the reduction of foreign flights, the official export of carpets to European and American countries has been stopped. “Due to the lack of air corridors, we have a problem in the export sector that we cannot export the carpet abroad, and also due to the lack of technical machinery for processing and washing the carpet inside the country,” she says. “The carpet is transported to Iran and Pakistan and then it is offered to the world under the name of the carpet of those countries.”
Mrs. Ayani, expressing her concern about the smuggling of Afghan carpets, says that women carpet weavers only earn wages for weaving carpets. “Carpet weaving women earn 22 to 44 dollars for each square meter, and one carpet is bought for $100 per square meter by the buyers inside the city,” says Rahamni. “This shows that we are nothing more than porters.”
A female artisan, who did not want to reveal her identity, says, “A six-meter carpet is woven by women carpet weavers in six months. Based on the estimate of the carpet seller, the wages of the carpet weaving women are $235 dollars and the price of raw materials is also $235. But the carpet is sold in Herat for $705 dollars to the people, if it goes to Iran and is processed, its price will reach $1180-1750 dollars.”
Inside Afghanistan, due to the poor economy, few people can afford to buy hand-woven carpets. In addition, the use of machine-made carpets and carpets has reduced the demand for buying hand-woven carpets. At the same time, the hand-woven Afghan carpet has a great reputation in the world, and a number of residents of Herat, during their trips to the American and European countries, are trying to achieve increasing benefits by buying carpets at a low price and selling them in international markets.
Maryam*, 35, is an employee of one of the government departments in Herat province, whose asylum application is accepted in Germany along with her eleven-member family.
“Some of my friends took Afghan carpets with them when they immigrated to European and American countries and told me that they earned good money by selling carpets,” she says. “I also bought two six-meter hand-woven carpets for $940 dollars and will take them to Germany for sale.”
*Note: In this report, the names of some interviewees have been chosen as pseudonyms.
