Afghan women, ‘gradually dying’ as Taliban shuts off more jobs, retrain as nurses
- More professional women are enrolling in nursing and midwifery courses, fed up with being cooped up and unemployed since the Taliban seized power
- But with girls barred from secondary education, aid agencies fear nursing applications will dry up and implicate Afghanistan’s future healthcare
After a decade lecturing at an Afghan university, former economist Shabana Sediqian is about to retrain as a nurse – it is not a career change she ever envisaged, but it will at least allow her to get out of the house again.
A growing number of professional women are enrolling in nursing and midwifery courses, fed up with being cooped up in their homes since the Taliban seized power two years ago – and needing money after losing their jobs.
Sediqian said nursing was almost the only vocation still open to women who were living “under house arrest” as the country’s hardline Islamic leaders impose ever harsher restrictions on their freedoms.
“This is the only way I can help my family financially, and help myself to get a job and get out of the house for a few hours,” she said.
Nilab Azizi, 30, a mother-of-three who used to work for an international aid project, is desperate to reconnect to her former professional life and looking forward to starting a three-year nursing course in September.
“I tried for more than a year to get back to work, but the Taliban shut every door in women’s faces,” she said. “Staying at home and doing nothing is like gradually dying.”
