Kabul (Kubha News) – With significant restrictions on women’s employment in government offices and some NGOs in Afghanistan, some of these women are looking for work from home.
Online sales of goods are one of the job opportunities that women have turned to for financial income and family support.
Medina Mehr, a former employee of the Ministry of Commerce who worked in the small women’s business development sector, has turned to online sales for the past six months, leveraging her experience.
Medina tells Kubha News that all her and her husband’s income from online sales goes towards their household expenses: “In the past, there wasn’t much interest in online shopping, but in recent years, as people became familiar with this method of buying, online sellers also tried to offer better quality products to customers. Because this is their business, and they want to find regular customers. But now there are two problems: first, the economic situation in Afghanistan has worsened, and second, importing goods has become difficult.”
She sells women’s clothing and mobile phones through her Facebook page, and her husband assists in delivering orders to customers.
Asefa Mehryar, who studied computer science at Kardan university for two years but had to leave due to the resurgence of the Taliban, is now engaged in online sales of home decor items and jewelry.
Asefa told Kubha News that she is satisfied with her business, but restrictions on sending money abroad have caused problems in fulfilling orders from her customers: “Most of our customers are women. Selling home decor items has actually decreased, but our jewelry sales are good. The problem is that our customers pay us in Afghan currency. It’s easy now to access to dollar in the market, but because the government does not allow sending dollars abroad, we face difficulties in transferring money to the companies outside the country from which we buy goods, and our items do not reach us on time.”
Recently, the Minister of Communications of the Taliban government announced plans to restrict or even block the Facebook social network in Afghanistan.
Feroz, who collaborates with seven companies in the marketing sector for online sales, told Kubha News that Facebook is the only means of online sales in Afghanistan: “Because the literacy rate is low in Afghanistan and people are not familiar with purchasing through websites, our only way of sales is these Facebook pages. Since we are doing business, Facebook also mostly does not reach our announcements to customers. Now, if Facebook is blocked, imagine, our business will also collapse.”
According to Afghanistan Central Bank regulations, an individual can transfer five thousand dollars via airports and five hundred dollars through land borders outside Afghanistan, but ordinary people complain that this permission is only given to traders, and they are not allowed to transfer dollars abroad.
Online sellers say that foreign companies that send goods to Afghanistan do not accept money transfer via the Hawala system due to its illegal nature, and the Taliban do not allow sending dollars through banks.
Small traders, especially online sellers, say that the Taliban government has issued official licenses to specific traders, and those without licenses cannot send dollars abroad.