Herat: Women were once confined to their homes in the western town of Herat.
But then in 1999, Dacaar, the Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees, started development programmes in Herat — which was later renamed the rural development programme (RDP).
Four years later, the men in the five districts had become used to the idea of allowing women to take part in the various projects.
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Abdul Razzaq, the provincial manager of Herat, told Gulf News: "First when we started our projects in the districts, the participation and contribution of the women for the project and for the income of the household and the family was very, very, very low".
Family income
"But ... today [thanks to] activities and projects that Dacaar started ... the women are more involved in the project and [contribute to] the income of the family," he said.
Women are encouraged to use resources that are available in the community and in their districts, for the projects in which they are involved.
When the projects were first implemented, the men didn't allow the women to work outside their homes, Abdul Razzaq said, "but [then] the men became ready to allow their women to work outside the house and their homes: this is one thing that is most important".
Women started to receive training so they could make products for their villages.
Dacaar held regular meetings with communities in the region, where members were able to discuss their problems and solutions to these problems. The non-government organisation encouraged them to make decisions about these problems and gave them confidence in their ability to be involved in the community.
It was through these regular meetings that the NGO increased the communities' awareness about the status of women.
"They found that the women are also part of the community," Abdul Razzaq continued. "[That] the women also have this ability, they can go out and they can work; they can go to the school, they can be educated, they can work as teachers, as other specialists. Slowly, the men accept[ed] this concept that the women can participate."
It took four years for this concept to be accepted among the men in the communities in which Dacaar was working. Enabling the women to meet in one place was also difficult at first, because "the men said that the women should not go out from the village... but after some time, they allow[ed] their women to go from one village to another village," he said.
Crucially, at first, the women too thought that they should stay in the house. The women thought they should not go out "because for many years they continued like this, so they thought like this," he said.
Receiving training
"But after they started to have meetings and started to receive training out of their homes, they found that the women also have this ability; that the women can work beside the men.
"Now — most importantly — the women think ‘We should also work. We have this ability to receive skills, we can go to this course, we can go to the universities'," Abdul Razzaq said.
Some of the women who have graduated from university training have become teachers and are employed by organisations including NGOs.
With their training and skills learned, other women are now going directly to the markets and conferring with traders in the market.
Striving for a direct contact
Restrictions on women's movements make it impossible for some women to leave their homes in Afghanistan. For this reason, it is impossible for them to search for work and any work they do undertake has to be done at home.
"And how many opportunities are there for work done from home?" asked Kerry-Jane Wilson, Director, Zardozi - markets for Afghan artisans. "If they [Afghan women] must work from home, then they must make things themselves which have to be sold by men in the market. If the women cannot go to the market then they don't know what will sell and they get no feedback from shopkeepers, etc. They also get cheated very easily," Wilson told Gulf News.
In order to link them to the market, "We find the few women who, for one reason or another, are allowed to move around a little more freely," Wilson said. One woman in a village works for the shop and supervises the other women who want to work. She then takes a commission and usually works herself.
"Thus, we have [a] much more direct relationship with the women."
