The Taliban’s morality police in Herat have shut down western Afghanistan’s largest UN-established carpet-weaving centre, which had been inaugurated by the Taliban governor. UNHCR representative Arafat Jamal said 348 women worked at the facility.
The carpet-weaving centre was inaugurated in February 2026.
Indrika Ratwatte, a representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), along with Arafat Jamal, the agency’s representative in Afghanistan, and several local elders, attended the inauguration of the centre.
The United Nations had described the facility as the largest carpet-weaving centre in western Afghanistan.
Funded by the Islamic Development Bank, the centre initially provided employment and livelihood opportunities for 400 returnees, more than three-quarters of whom were women.
Jamal recently told the German publication MiGAZIN that one of the challenges of working with the Taliban is that agreements reached with local officials can subsequently be overturned by higher-ranking Taliban authorities.
He stressed that the United Nations must cooperate with the Taliban to deliver assistance to people in need, but such cooperation does not constitute an endorsement of the group’s policies.
According to Jamal, 60% of UNHCR’s assistance is directed towards women.
He also said that, of the agency’s 200 employees in Afghanistan, 29 are Afghan women who have been barred from entering UN offices for more than a year and have been forced to work from home.
Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban has imposed sweeping restrictions on women’s employment. In 2022, the group banned women from working for non-governmental organisations and subsequently introduced restrictions on Afghan women working for the United Nations.
In a report published in August this year, UN Women said only 7% of Afghan women were employed, compared with 84% of men.
The agency also warned that Taliban restrictions and declining international assistance were putting women-led organisations at risk of closure.
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