Sweet success for Afghan women
The ancient practice of beekeeping is providing a source of revenue for residents of a rural area who traditionally have not been encouraged to work
YAKAWLANG // “I make my money for me,” declares Afghan beekeeper Jamila, pointing to herself.
Since taking up honey-making more than a year ago, her small business has given her not only an income, but also a sense of pride.
Jamila is a member of one of four beekeeping cooperatives set up in Afghanistan’s mountainous Bamiyan province in recent years with the help of NGOs and foreign aid. Started from scratch, they now employ about 400 people, half of them women, and produce 14,000 kilograms of honey a year.
Beekeeping supplements income from growing potatoes, the main agricultural activity in one of Afghanistan’s least developed but most liberal regions. The district of Yakawlang where Jamila lives is about 100 kilometres from Bamiyan’s famous giant Buddha statues that were destroyed by the Taliban, and about 2,600 metres above sea level.
“There was no tradition of beekeeping here until the 1960s, when it was launched by King Zahir Shah,” says Marc Jeanjean, a beekeeper sent by the French aid agency AFD to help revive the sector. “When we started working in 2005 there was nothing left, but things really began to take off in 2012 when the ministry of agriculture began pushing it.”
Jamila got her start in beekeeping thanks to her neighbour, Siamui, who helped found the cooperative five years ago and provided her with her first colony.
“It was in April and I remem- ber that day perfectly. I was so happy. When I was done with my housework, I could spend the whole day watching my bees and how they work,” she says, making the other women around her laugh.
The cooperative has collected about 400kg of honey this year, according to its supervisor, Habitullah Noori. Each kilo fetches 800 Afghanis (Dh44) in Bamiyan and 1,000 in Kabul.
Jamila is a grandmother whose children have left home; Siamui is raising eight of her own; Siddiqa, an orphan, takes care of four brothers and sisters. Each keeps between one and four hives that add a few thousand Afghanis to the household income.
“I can pay for the bus when I want to visit my daughter, I can buy her chocolate,” Jamila says.
“I can buy notepads for the kids,” says Halima, who is in her twenties with two children. For Marzia, who hails from the village Qatakhan, 30 minutes from Yakawlang, where she keeps four hives, producing honey is key to survival. When the Taliban overran the area in early 2000 she became a widow.
On January 19 that year, her husband was pulled out of his mosque and shot dead, one of many residents murdered by the militants after one of the commanders ordered his men “to kill everyone, even the dogs and chickens”.
“Earlier I started farming, sowing, reaping weeds in the mountains,” Marzia says.
“My brother assisted me but I was mostly on my own. Now with the honey I can support my family, I am my own boss.”
Farther down the slopes of Qatakhan, Fatima and her daughters, wearing beekeeper’s hats and visors, adjust the honeycombs in their hives. Fatima’s husband, Ahmad Hossaini, helps his wife by bringing the bees their sugar.
“It’s the first time we’ve worked together,” he says with a smile.
Fifteen years after the fall of the Taliban regime, Afghanistan remains a harsh place for women. Only 10 per cent of salaried female employees work outside the agricultural sector, earning 30 per cent less than their male counterparts.
In the countryside, they constitute an ignored, overworked and poorly paid workforce.
“When they get a revenue for the first time it helps to establish their position better in the household”, especially girls, who are otherwise seen as potential burdens on their families, says Sadia Fatimie, a consultant for international institutions.
“Only 34 per cent of women in this country say they are allowed to spend the money that they earn,” she says.
“It is widely accepted here by the society that women can be at the front line to support the family,” says Abdul Wahab Mohammadi, an agricultural official in Bamiyan.
“It’s increasing – people see it as a success story and they are copying it.”