Peshawar: Vocational School for Empowering Afghan Refugee Women

In a small workshop in Peshawar, a dozen Afghan women listen intently to their native as she teaches them how to sew on a sewing machine.

The vocational school was established last year by Mahira Bashir, a 37-year-old resident of Peshawar, after noticing the steady influx of people from neighboring Afghanistan into the city, where Afghan women have faced increasing restrictions since the Taliban took over the country.

Striving to create opportunities for women to become financially independent, Mahira managed to teach tailoring as well as digital skills and beauty treatments where hundreds of women were immediately enrolled and engaged. The list of aspiring women is long.

Mahira told Reuters: ‘If we get help (from the government or aid organizations), I think we will be able to train between 250 and 500 women at a time, empowering them. can be made and thus they can play an important role in society.’

Officials say millions of Afghans have arrived in Pakistan since foreign forces left Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban took over. According to the United Nations, Pakistan is already hosting about 1.3 million registered Afghan refugees, which is the largest number of refugees in any country in the world.

Officials say that Pakistan’s government, which is struggling with an economic crisis, is increasingly worried about the arrival of more Afghans.

A number of Afghan nationals have been arrested in recent weeks on charges that they do not have legal documents to stay in Pakistan, lawyers and officials have said.

Mahira, however, said her main focus is to increase employment opportunities for Afghan women. They have also included some Pakistani women in this program to create employment opportunities for women. After graduating from the three-month course, these women focus on meaningful income-generating efforts and often start their own businesses.

Among such women is Fatima, a 19-year-old Afghan national who has received training at the center. Fatima said that now she wants to open a beauty parlor in Peshawar.

She said: ‘Right now I intend to start a beauty parlor at home. After that is to do it professionally so that I can eventually open a big salon of my own.’