By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
March 19, 2025
Under the Taliban, Afghan women can’t study at universities or work in most jobs.
But 22-year-old Zahra Ali has created a small business that brings in an income and provides a much-needed resource to her neighbors.
At her home workshop in Kabul, she builds rechargeable battery packs that help compensate for the country’s unreliable power grid.
“I produce a lot. I can’t keep up with all the orders. It’s because Afghanistan faces frequent power shortages,” she explains next to a work bench full of batteries, soldering irons, and electrometers.
Customers who buy the battery packs charge them when the electricity is flowing and then use them when power from the grid is intermittent or is cut off.
Before the Taliban returned to power in 2021, she studied at the Herat Institute of Technology.
Since then girls and women have been barred from secondary and higher education, and there are few places where they can work.
The Taliban has allowed limited exceptions in the health and education sectors, but these jobs come with severe restrictions and the number of women in the workforce continues to fall, according to the United Nations.
Women must also be accompanied by a male relative when traveling longer distance from their homes and can face harassment and checks even when close to home.
“It’s not easy to work in the current situation. It takes a lot of effort and courage,” says Ali. “I have faced many obstacles, but eventually I decided to build this workshop to generate an income, so I won’t have to rely on my family and friends.”
She says there were few women working in science and technology even before the Taliban resumed power, but she remains undeterred.
“Producing power banks is not a job only for men. I mean that women can do it too, but we need to work hard and be committed.”