![\"\"](\"https:\/\/rukhshana.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/women-in-kandahar.jpg\")
\u201cI sat outside a school from morning till night to win a piece of bread for myself and my children,\u201d she said. \u201cBut the Taliban now does not allow me to work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course it is not only Sakina who lost her job after the Taliban\u2019s return to power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Taliban have not allowed most working women to return to work after they took power. There is no reliable data available about the exact number of women who have lost their jobs in the past ten months. But that number could be thousands or even thousands by some estimates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UN Women executive director, Sima Bahous, said in a statement last month that the restrictions the Taliban have imposed on women \u201cincreasingly limit women\u2019s ability to earn a living.\u201d Afghanistan is losing up to one billion USD annually due to the Taliban\u2019s restriction on women\u2019s employment, according to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bahous called for the \u201cimmediate restoration of women\u2019s and girls\u2019 independent freedom of movement, and their rights to work and to education to the highest level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The economic crisis following the fall of the former government has disproportionately affected women in Afghanistan, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO) which estimates that women\u2019s employment has decreased by 16 percent in the third quarter of 2021 compared to men whose employment has dropped by 6 percent during the same period. By mid-2022, the women employment rate could drop to up to 28 percent, ILO\u2019s has projected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Taliban have given Sakina and the three other widows a food stamp-like card to receive aid which includes a sack of 45 kilograms of wheat, a bottle of three liters of cooking oil, and a thousand Afghani in cash every two to three months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fatima, a 50-year-old mother and grandmother, also lives in the mud house in the heart of Kandahar city. She said she has lost her husband and one son to the conflict, and one of her sons was severely wounded. Her third son is an 18-year-old school student who is unemployed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like Sakina, Fatima and her widowed daughter-in-law, Rakma, sold dates and eggs in the streets to feed their five children before the Taliban. But now they can\u2019t work due to the draconian restrictions the Taliban have imposed on women in Kandahar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The women said they have fallen three months behind on rent. Their monthly rent is 4,000 Afghani or about 45 USD, a significant amount for four women and twelve children whose income has dropped to zero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fourth woman living in the house is Freshta, a 21-year-old mother of two, whose husband went missing two years ago. Like the three other widows, she also receives aid which she said doesn\u2019t meet even 10 percent of her family\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI must be allowed to work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a deeply conservative Kandahar, all four of them had to leave their house almost everyday to work and make money to feed their children, defying social norms by working in the streets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","video":"","gallery":"","source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"1","override":[{"template":"6","single_blog_custom":"","layout":"double-sidebar","sidebar":"","second_sidebar":"","share_position":"","share_float_style":"","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"","post_date_format_custom":"","post_reading_time_wpm":"","zoom_button_out_step":"1","zoom_button_in_step":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"","single_post_gallery_size":""}],"trending_post_position":"","trending_post_label":"","sponsored_post_label":"","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":""},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[966,902],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-en","category-reports-en"],"yoast_head":"\n