AFP :
As a nurse at one of Kabul’s main hospitals, Latifa Alizada was the breadwinner for her family, providing for her three young boys and unemployed husband.
Now-since the Taliban rolled into Afghanistan’s capital-she too is jobless, and worried about the future.
The 27-year-old left her role at Jamhuriat Hospital because the hardline Islamist group said salaries would not be paid, and imposed rules that would force her to wear a face veil and be segregated from male colleagues. “I have left my job because there is no salary.
There is no salary at all,” she said, holding the hands of two of her boys who chewed on sweetcorn
cobs. “If I go there, they say ‘do not work with this style of dress. Do not
work with men. Work with women’. This is impossible,” she told AFP at a
street market in Kabul.”For us, there is no difference between men and women, because we are
medical workers.” Afghans like Alizada worry about what lies ahead under the Taliban. Food prices have gone up at markets, the cost of fuel has risen and there
are fewer opportunities to make money. The United Nations this week warned prices for essential goods were soaring in Afghanistan, adding: “There are fears of food shortages, higher inflation, and a slump in the currency all resulting in an intensification of the humanitarian emergency across the country.”
