Fereshta (1:32)

I had big hopes to study to.

Hannah Bewley (1:34)

Finish my school and then go on.

Zahra (1:36)

To university to study law.

Hannah Bewley (1:38)

I had big dreams of becoming a lawyer.

Fereshta (1:41)

Unfortunately, now I am busy leaving carpets.

Hannah Bewley (1:45)

Heavy restrictions have been placed on women's abilities to study and work, leaving many with no opportunities and their hopes they had for the future shattered.

Nadia (1:53)

I had a roadmap like going going to university for my master degree and after I go to the Parliament of Afghanistan and after I will be a minister.

Hannah Bewley (2:02)

So what is life like for women working in Afghanistan? That's all coming up in today's Business Daily. Just a quick note before we get into today's episode. Since recording the interviews for this program, the Taliban imposed a 48 hour nationwide Internet shutdown last week. Communication flights and essential services were severely affected. The network is now back on, but there were fears about women's access to online education and work. These conversations were recorded before the shutdown, but they provide important context to the economic and humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

Fereshta (2:40)

My colleagues said, hey, okay. The President left and the new government Took over. I was, you're lying. He was like, no, this is the reality. And they told that, okay, their target firstly might be women. So let's go to your houses. I came and said that, is this the reality in my family? And they were like, yeah, that's the reality.

Hannah Bewley (3:01)

This is Fereshta, not her real name. Remembering the day a US led coalition government was replaced by the Taliban authorities in August 2021. She works in the tech sector.

Fereshta (3:11)

My mother was saying that they can put restrictions on you or whatever, just don't be hopeless. My mother was saying this to make me feel a little bit relaxed, but I was very shock. I remember I didn't eat lunch as well because I was like, no, everything was finished and we're done. Deep inside, we were very down.

Hannah Bewley (3:34)

The company management arranged an online call for everyone, which Vareshta said helped.

Fereshta (3:39)

But after that we succeeded to have a little bit changes in the mindset and then go on as we move forward.

Hannah Bewley (3:46)

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

Fereshta (3:48)

I wanted to be a businesswoman when I was growing up to have my own startup. And specifically I wanted to help the Afghan woman. But I'm glad that if I didn't create that business myself, I'm part of that kind of platform which has the same mission that I was thinking back in the days.

Hannah Bewley (4:08)

Do you ever think about those girls who are growing up now who will have a very different education to what you were able to have over the 20 years previously?

Fereshta (4:18)

That was the first thing that I was concerned when the country was collapsed. I was like, I'm not thinking of myself. My mother was saying that, okay, I'll send you out of the country. But I was like, my concern is not just for myself. My concern is about my other friends, other girls, and specifically my younger sister, that what will happen to their future. I was concerned about that and I was seeing like, okay, they might not be able to learn the way I learned or the opportunity is not there for them. But it still were helping and pushing forward from our end to do some, at least something for them to make the path for them better with online trainings, you know, remote job opportunities.

Hannah Bewley (5:09)

Since that day Forrestra remembers so vividly, numerous restrictions have been placed on the lives of women and girls by the hardline Islamist Taliban government. Fereshta still works for the company, but now must work from home. She says women aren't allowed into the office. Since the Taliban returned to power, it has introduced a series of decrees seeking to silence women in public, bar them from Education above the age of 12 enforce head to toe coverings and forcing them to use a mahram or male chaperone in many cases. In fact, almost 100 edicts have been issued in this area, which the UN has described as a chaotic mix of informal and formal decrees which are enforced inconsistently. There are now far fewer women in the workforce and the UN's most recent estimate shows that 78% of Afghan women are not in education, employment or training. And that's one of the highest figures globally. Many women have carved out opportunities from home. Others are supported by international organizations. Samira Syed Rahman is the advocacy and Communications director for Save the Children in the Afghan capital Kabul.

Samira Syed Rahman (6:15)

We have been working with women's organizations, primarily women's businesses, to be able to support them in accessing markets, in being able to access financing, to find ways to establish a credit line through banks or financial institutions that might facilitate loans to businesses. So these are all different types of programming that we have really tried to focus on and grow as the economic crisis persists.

Hannah Bewley (6:44)

Are there ways for women to work?

Samira Syed Rahman (6:46)

The number of female owned businesses registered in Afghanistan have nearly doubled in the course of of the last three years. The challenge for women working in the private sector, it's a lack of access to financing, it is the banking restrictions, it is the financial challenges that are affecting the whole Afghan private sector. They are forced increasingly to rely on hawala payments. So these are networks where you deposit cash in one location and then the cash is given in another location for payments, bypassing the official banking system. They can't do cash transfers, they can't transfer money in and out of the country. If they want to import raw materials that are then processed by these women owned businesses, they are unable to do that payment transfer to be able to access that raw material. And it's been three and a half years that again, the Afghan private sector, but particularly Afghan women owned businesses, are facing the brunt of these restrictions.

Hannah Bewley (7:52)

Samira Syed Rahman it's difficult to hear directly from women in Afghanistan. Many of them don't want to speak, don't want to use their own names because they fear repercussions. A shopkeeper in Kabul, who we'll call Zahra has shared her story with our reporter. She sells women's clothes and jewellery, which was initially set up with help from an ngo, but she now runs it independently.

Zahra (8:15)

I have six children, three boys and three girls. I have had this shop for almost five years. We observe hijab a couple of times. The Taliban came to check. They found no issue with our hijab. They saw we were each busy in our own shops so they didn't bother us and allowed us to carry on. It doesn't make a difference. Each business has its own challenges. Whether you are a man or a woman. If women just around hopelessly, it will be hard for them. But if a woman get the confidence to work, it is never that hard. My children are young. A few of them are studying. The change of regime made money tight. They are deprived of lessons. They are mostly not working. A few of girls make small things such as scarves.

Hannah Bewley (9:05)

Her husband left her, so now she supports her family alone.

Zahra (9:08)

When the two of us were working, it was better. My children went to study then. But now I have to provide alone. I wish my children were allowed to study for a few more years. Now after the regime change, there is unemployment and poverty. I can only provide bread for them. The rest they have to do without poor souls. Things have changed a lot because before this you were at home. There was less work. I had similar income. Now I work more. It's okay, I have some income. Had the regime change had not happened, I would have better progress. But now there isn't much business.

Hannah Bewley (9:46)

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Hannah Bewley (10:56)

I'm Hannah Bewley and today we're hearing about women's working lives in Afghanistan. After the Taliban's return to power in 2021, the World bank has estimated that banning women from education and work could cost the country more than $1.4 billion each year. Non governmental organisations or NGOs did provide reliable employment for women in the country and were a popular sector under the previous government. But with restrictions on females working in offices and for international organisations, the work doesn't come without risk. The UN says these rules have forced many women's organisations to close or dramatically scale back, while others are struggling to remain operational.

Miriam (11:38)

Economically, Afghanistan will never be able to go forward until women have the right to participate.

Hannah Bewley (11:44)

This is the boss of an NGO which works with women in Afghanistan. She's speaking to me about her experience, but for safety reasons, we'll call her Miriam.

Miriam (11:53)

It's been devastating watching the options removed and wasting potentially, you know, half of Afghanistan's talent. The brains of these women, the energy, the compassion. We need Afghan women to fully participate.

Hannah Bewley (12:13)

What's the picture like at the moment in your sector for female staff?

Miriam (12:18)

It's incredibly difficult. For our female staff, primarily every few months, you know, there's a different edict that gives another restriction or modifies a restriction. The steps we have to take to ensure that women have a designated companion, what's called a mahram. You know, most NGOs in Afghanistan have completely segregated their workplace. The other thing we've really had to invest in is well being and psychosocial support, mental health support. While we have, for the most part, been safe in our organization, we had an incident that was incredibly traumatic for our team and, and for our female staff. Even though we provide mahrams, even though we support with transportation, even though we give them Internet so that they can work from home if they need to, every day they're faced with the fear, am I going to be stopped at a checkpoint? Am I going to be sent home? Is my office going to be subject to a traumatizing inspection? On most days those things don't happen. But it's a fear that Afghan women live with every day, and Afghan men as well.

Hannah Bewley (13:30)

She told me about a specific incident which happened earlier this year.

Miriam (13:33)

I left to go to a meeting. When I came back, the door opened to take my car into what we call, you know, an airlock, which is supposed to be a safe, you know, holding area. And a raiding entity from the de facto authorities came in with really, really magnificent show of force and many guns at the same time. You know, it speaks to the nuances happening. You know, the information that they received or may have received about our organization to them warranted a rate. It was misinformation. It was resolved. We sat down, we talked and we came. You know to a resolution with various ministries and directorates that we needed to speak with. But everybody who was there was traumatized. And the uncertainty and the fear that continued over the next days, the weeks, was incredibly inhibitive to our work. We had inspections into our programs in various provinces over the next week. Everything was found to be fine and in alignment with policies. But it was just yet another thing that was not necessary to go through.

Hannah Bewley (14:46)

Miriam says that for many NGOs, the pressures of working in Afghanistan are too great.

Miriam (14:52)

It really saddens me because some NGOs have chosen to leave and are today sitting down contemplating this choice. How much will we take? How many inspections? How many restrictions on our female staff? How much insecurity are we willing to take to do our job? And there are some who have decided it's too much, we can't do it.

Hannah Bewley (15:14)

Due to hostile conditions and a lack of opportunity, many women have left the country. The center for Strategic and International Studies has estimated, when added to the overall exclusion of women from public life, could cost the Afghan economy up to 5% of its GDP. Nadia, which isn't her real name, is now based in France. She's a journalist who left over fears for her safety.

Nadia (15:37)

It was like a very worse situation for women journalists in Afghanistan. Like they told us, hide their faces, don't ask this question, wear hijab. It was very worse for me. It makes me like very heartbroken. To continue, they close schools, they close universities. Now women, they are not exist to do anything. Like as a presenting freely in that situation, I decided to go another country to continue my work as a journalist.

Hannah Bewley (16:10)

What's it like for your sisters and friends who are still in Afghanistan now? What are they saying to you at the moment?

Nadia (16:17)

I have two sisters. One of them, she based in Paris with me, but another one, she's in Afghanistan. She told me there's no hope to continue their life at all. Even they cannot breathe well under the flag of the Taliban. So she's too much hopeless. She's like completely broken.

Hannah Bewley (16:39)

When you were growing up and being educated, did you ever think that you would be in this situation for your working life?

Nadia (16:47)

When I was child, when I was like, I had a very big role map for my future. I never imagined this situation. For me, it will be happening in future. That's why it was very shocking time that I faced by the Taliban. I had a roadmap, like going to university for my master degree. And after I go to the parliament of Afghanistan and after I will be a minister. So it was like, yeah, after Taliban come, it was like completely high deleted. Yeah, unfortunately.

Hannah Bewley (17:20)

How has it been adapting, living in a completely new country and city?

Nadia (17:25)

It's not easy. I know it's very not easy for me. It's very heartbroken. But I'm going to try my best for the moment. I know that I cannot be a news presenter in French, but for my community, maybe I can do anything good and anything better. And I'm trying my best.

Hannah Bewley (17:45)

With so many restrictions against women working in Afghanistan and their childhood dreams now seeming a distant memory, I asked Fereshta, who works in the tech industry, if it's hard to stay hopeful.

Fereshta (17:57)

Yeah, it is hard in this situation, but it's a sign of being strong, right? So my hope for the future of women in Afghanistan is to get them educated. Right? And if they all are educated, they might be able to once in a time stand alone and tell that, okay, this is something that we need to bring and we need to push forward for them to see a brighter future. Although now there is nothing, you know, people are in darkness.

Hannah Bewley (18:29)

Earlier this year, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for two of the Taliban's top leaders, accusing them of persecuting women and girls in Afghanistan. It said there were reasonable grounds to believe Supreme Leader Hajbatullah Akhunzada and Chief Executive Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani had committed a crime against humanity in their treatment of women and girls. The Taliban doesn't recognize the ICC and said this was a clear act of hostility. I contacted the Taliban authorities in Kabul to speak to me for this program, but didn't get a response. The government has previously said it respects women's rights in accordance with their interpretation of Afghan culture and Islamic law. The economic cost to excluding women from education and the workplace is clear in a country which is already facing huge challenges. But the personal toll will be one that's felt for decades to come. Thank you to everyone who shared their story for this program and to those who worked on it as well. This episode of Business Daily was produced and presented by me, Hannah Beaulie. To hear more episodes, search for Business Daily Wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Sarah (19:44)

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