Afghan women struggle to run a business under Taliban
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Afghan women clad in burqas, along with their children, walk along a road in Spin Ziyarat village in the Dand district of Kandahar on June 16.
PHOTO: AFP
Elian Peltier
MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan – The Taliban have imposed some of the world’s toughest restrictions on women and girls, but to ward off economic collapse and isolation, they have let women start businesses in Afghanistan – as long as they comply with a cascade of debilitating rules.
More than 10,000 Afghan women have business licences – a tenfold increase in the past five years, according to the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry. With an additional estimated 120,000 working without licences, small businesses are the largest employers of Afghan women, according to the World Bank.
