The number of women vendors in Kabul has increased in recent months as a result of poverty and economic difficulties.
They said that they have to perform difficult labor due to financial difficulties.
Bi Bi Ko sells handicrafts near a school in the capital, and says that she is the sole breadwinner of her family and that her young son was disabled in one of the security events and is unable to work.
“I have been working here for eighteen years, in these eighteen years I have not seen a single person who gave money,” Bi Bi Ko said.
“We ask the Islamic Emirate to help us stop working on the streets,” Nazanin said.
However, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MoLSA) said that the exact number of these women is not clear and that the ministry is trying to provide work opportunities for them.
“Those women who do not have guardians or husbands and have small children, and are the breadwinners of their families–we have plans to find employment for them within the Islamic Sharia hijab at their homes,” said Makhdom Abdul Salam Sadat, deputy of the Ministry of Labor.
Previously, the United Nations reported that over half of Afghanistan’s population is living under the poverty line and do not have enough food to eat.
