The Taliban government in Afghanistan has significantly reduced the salaries of women employed in the public sector, reported news agency AFP on Monday citing the finance ministry.
“Women who are at home and do not go to the office… their salaries are 5,000 Afghanis ($70) a month,” Ahmad Wali Haqmal, the finance ministry spokesman, told AFP.
Women working in segregated areas, such as government hospitals or schools, will still receive their full salaries based on their positions.
Previously, women in the public sector, including university professors who are now banned from campus, could earn up to around 35,000 Afghanis. Administrative roles in ministries typically paid around 20,000 Afghanis, but many saw their salaries reduced to approximately 15,000 after the Taliban takeover.
While these women continue to receive payment, their salaries have been slashed. The measure comes even as Afghan women have been forced to avoid work since the ultra-Islamist group seized power in 2021.
One 25-year-old woman, who requested anonymity for security reasons and has been working for the Information and Culture department outside Kabul since early 2021, reported that her salary has dropped from 10,000 Afghanis. She uses her income to support her family of seven, including her ill mother, but the reduced salary barely lasts her two weeks.
“Making women stay at home is already a very big problem for us — we are in a very bad mental and psychological condition — and now that our salaries have decreased, this has only worsened,” she told AFP.
The salary change, which took effect in July, is expected to impact tens of thousands of women employed in the public sector, according to the finance ministry spokesman.
Since regaining power in 2021, the Taliban authorities have severely restricted women’s freedoms based on a strict interpretation of Islamic law, which the United Nations has described as “gender apartheid.”
Women have been excluded from public life, with bans on education and access to public parks, gyms, and baths.
Afghanistan has been devastated by decades of war and has long relied on international aid, which has significantly decreased since the Taliban’s return to power. In 2023, the UN Women estimated that approximately 29.2 million people, nearly 70 per cent of the population, required urgent humanitarian assistance to survive.
“Women who are at home and do not go to the office… their salaries are 5,000 Afghanis ($70) a month,” Ahmad Wali Haqmal, the finance ministry spokesman, told AFP.
Women working in segregated areas, such as government hospitals or schools, will still receive their full salaries based on their positions.
Previously, women in the public sector, including university professors who are now banned from campus, could earn up to around 35,000 Afghanis. Administrative roles in ministries typically paid around 20,000 Afghanis, but many saw their salaries reduced to approximately 15,000 after the Taliban takeover.
While these women continue to receive payment, their salaries have been slashed. The measure comes even as Afghan women have been forced to avoid work since the ultra-Islamist group seized power in 2021.
One 25-year-old woman, who requested anonymity for security reasons and has been working for the Information and Culture department outside Kabul since early 2021, reported that her salary has dropped from 10,000 Afghanis. She uses her income to support her family of seven, including her ill mother, but the reduced salary barely lasts her two weeks.
“Making women stay at home is already a very big problem for us — we are in a very bad mental and psychological condition — and now that our salaries have decreased, this has only worsened,” she told AFP.
The salary change, which took effect in July, is expected to impact tens of thousands of women employed in the public sector, according to the finance ministry spokesman.
Since regaining power in 2021, the Taliban authorities have severely restricted women’s freedoms based on a strict interpretation of Islamic law, which the United Nations has described as “gender apartheid.”
Women have been excluded from public life, with bans on education and access to public parks, gyms, and baths.
Afghanistan has been devastated by decades of war and has long relied on international aid, which has significantly decreased since the Taliban’s return to power. In 2023, the UN Women estimated that approximately 29.2 million people, nearly 70 per cent of the population, required urgent humanitarian assistance to survive.