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 licenses — a tenfold increase in the past five years, according to the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry. With another estimated 120,000 working without licenses, small businesses are the largest employers of Afghan women, according to the World Bank.
But that apparent boom does little to hide the shrinking horizons for women’s lives.
Those who dreamed of becoming lawyers, engineers or university professors have turned to carpet weaving, cosmetics or vocational training because they cannot work in government administration or for many nonprofits.
They also cannot run beauty salons, study midwifery or nursing, or speak with male clients, suppliers or banking officials.
The vast majority of Afghan women do not work at all — less than 7 percent of Afghan women were employed as of 2024, according to the U.N. Development Programme.
Those who do work have faced growing hurdles. The harassment and arrests of dozens of women by the morality police in June led to a rare public protest.
Still, as the Taliban approach the five-year anniversary of their return to power, Afghan women have turned to entrepreneurship as one of the last ways they can support their households and find a semblance of social life.
“The only remaining hope for women in Afghanistan is business,” said Behnaz Saljughi, a representative for female business owners in the province of Herat.
“Even before the Taliban came, I wanted to be an entrepreneur.”
Nasira Azizi, 19
On a recent morning in a warehouse in Mazar-i-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan, some 60 women knotted, trimmed and wove rugs under the watch of their boss, Nasira Azizi, 19.
Ms. Azizi was 14 when the Taliban swept back to power in 2021 and later barred millions of girls like her from studying beyond sixth grade. “I fell into depression,” Ms. Azizi said about the ban on education. “At home, you see the same faces all the time.”
The rug workshop opened up her world. “Here, there are at least more topics to discuss, more motivation to get the job done,” she said.
Ms. Azizi launched her business with financial support from the U.N. Development Programme, including a grant to create jobs for Afghan women who have been expelled from neighboring Iran and Pakistan in recent years.
She now has about 450 workers in two workshops and at home.
Her two brothers handle the rugs’ design and the marketing. Her father runs one of the workshops, where male employees clean the rugs before they are sold.
The rest — management, human resources, finances — falls to Ms. Azizi. “The business license is under my name,” she said.
‘We Need Bigger Pots’
Roqia Rezaei, 21, said she had dreamed of becoming a mining engineer before the Taliban took over Afghanistan. Unable to pursue that field, she taught English, but the Taliban government cracked down on private tutoring, and her students dwindled.
In 2022, she founded Magnolia, a soap business in Herat, one of Afghanistan’s largest cities. It now sustains her family of seven, she said.
The smell of turmeric wafted over Ms. Rezaei’s workshop on a recent afternoon as her mother stirred the simmering, gluey matter that would soon become soap. Rows of saffron-infused soap bars and dropper bottles filled with black seed oil sat in an adjacent room.
The setup remains rustic — two large stockpots, no automation — but Ms. Rezaei has her eye on Iran and Tajikistan as the next frontiers for her business, which she wants to turn into an international brand by 2030. An avid reader of psychology and management books, she spoke as two dozen certificates and online diplomas pinned to a wall towered over her.
“We need bigger pots and some machines,” Ms. Rezaei said.
A Bee Queen Defies the Rules
“This is one of the good things about the Taliban: The government is active in supporting women’s businesses. And yet, we face more restrictions by the day.”
Ghoncha Karimi, 39
The stories of female entrepreneurs in Afghanistan come with countless caveats.
Ms. Rezaei cannot travel alone to Kabul, the capital, to sell her soap. She needs a male companion. Ms. Azizi cannot advertise the care and finesse put into the rug-making process to male clients.
They often have to rely on their husbands, fathers or brothers to do business.
Or they defy Taliban restrictions.
In Herat, Ghoncha Karimi, 39, a beekeeper, said she sometimes dresses as a man when she travels to the outskirts of the city to tend to her bees.
With her husband struggling to find jobs as a day laborer, the honey Ms. Karimi produces from her 50 beehives makes up a significant portion of the family’s income. She is now known locally as the Bee Queen of Afghanistan.
But sales slumped in 2023 when the Taliban ordered her to stop receiving male clients in her shop, she said.
Twice in recent years, she lost her bees: once after the Taliban takeover when many women stayed at home out of fear, and again in 2023, when she was imprisoned for 20 days after a brawl with a Talib official over limitations on women.
‘I’m the Controller’
Afghan authorities say they encourage women to pursue vocational training programs, and they are also encouraging businesses to hire more of them, as long as the women respect the “principles of the country,” according to Samiullah Ibrahimi, the spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Work and Social Affairs.
But critics say these measures are nowhere near enough.
When asked about key programs for women, Mr. Ibrahimi referred to a “committee for economic empowerment” that he said had provided work for 26 women this year — in a country of nearly 45 million people.
“Our mothers used to tell us that they worked hard so our future would be better and more peaceful,” said Fariba Noori, the acting head of Afghanistan’s Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “Our future did not become better or more peaceful. Now we tell our own children the same thing, but I don’t think that will happen.”
Families and conservative values are ever-present obstacles.
Waheeda Noorzai, 41, said she faced years of domestic abuse from her husband because of her professional ambitions. She has a master’s degree, but her husband, she said, does not know how to read or write.
“But after fighting, you become the queen of the family,” she said. “Now, all the girls in my family are at school, and my brothers say, ‘My daughter should be like you.’”
Ms. Noorzai now manages two dozen female employees with hearing impairments at the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee, a nonprofit promoting access to health care and economic inclusion.
And her husband follows her guidance on their two daughters’ educations, she said.
Ms. Rezaei started Magnolia soap when her family was in deep financial trouble. Her father, Cheraghali Rezaei, had driven several businesses to bankruptcy in the past, he said.
Yet in a lengthy interview at the family home, Mr. Rezaei claimed credit for the brand’s success.
“I’m in charge of the marketing, and that is what matters the most. If she’s a television, I’m the controller that can make her into the channel I want.”
Cheraghali Rezaei on his daughter Roqia Rezaei
As restrictions pile up, some female entrepreneurs say the risks of doing business are simply getting too high.
Ms. Karimi, the beekeeper, was imprisoned when her daughter was only 7. When she returned, her daughter told her, “Mommy, are you really released, or am I dreaming?”
After that episode, Ms. Karimi said, “I told myself, ‘Even if the Taliban hits me on the head, I will not raise my head again.’”
Yaqoob Akbary, Kiana Hayeri and Safiullah Padshah contributed reporting.
