Tuesday September 2, 2014
Kabul (BNA) The culture of carpet weaving has long background in Afghanistan, particularly it is popular in Balkh and Faryab provinces, where women are mostly engaged in the craft, with the products are known and exported to the regional and world countries.
Head of carpet weaving union in Mazar-e-Sharif, Abdul Sattar Bikzad said, the craft is being taken ahead, with different types, but the craft is now discolored among the craftsmen because of heavy work and less income.
Carpet in most provinces of the country, particularly in the north has several types to be weaved and produced—the most popular is that weaved in the ground rather than those produced in hanging form, while new designers could make the products more colorful. The rugs and carpets are mostly weaved by the women in their houses. Mauri, Silken and Alikhwaja are those types of the rugs produced by female workers in some districts of Faryab province, such as Qaisar, Sayad and Shirin Tagab, said Bikzad adding these types of carpets will never lose their quality and celebrity.
He went on as saying that each 6 meter carpet is completed to weave during at least 4 months, but he said the process would remove household problems in one side and on the other, the products are the best trade for the country. But, the incomes for the workers are 70 to 100 Afghanis-several times less in the country than those produced by Afghans in the neighboring Pakistan. The carpet weaving craft is carried out by over three million, 90 percent in the northern-provinces, where the female workers are used to run inside their houses. According to him, Afghans engaged in carpet weaving in Pakistan are exporting their products in the name of Pakistani’s factory, which could be called a heavy blow to the country’s economy.
He asked the government for soon stepping up in this field and converting attention to the country’s own production and preventing them not to be sold in the name of Pakistan products. He believes if the government establishes micro and big loans for the carpet craftsmen, both the government and the workers will benefit the income. Carpet weaving is a crafts run worldwide, but those of Afghans produced are the most popular at home and overseas, however its trade had faced harsh stagnancy.
