From civil servants, teachers and doctors to journalists and business owners, loss of female workers under the Taliban has already cost the economy $1bn
One morning last summer, Nasira* arrived for work at the government building in Kabul where she was employed in a managerial position to find men from the Taliban had occupied her office. “I wasn’t allowed to enter,” the 32-year-old says. “When I enquired why, I was told to wait for a government announcement, which never came.”
This was shortly after the Taliban swept to power and seized Kabul, the capital city, on 15 August 2021. That was the last day that Nasira and thousands of women like her were able to go to work. Though the Taliban’s acting prime minister, Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, claimed that women would be allowed to continue working under sharia law, female government employees in Kabul were told to stay at home, and only women whose jobs cannot be done by men were allowed to work.
