Afghan women, working as a team, weaving a carpet on a vertical loom.

New York—The Afghan Women’s Business Federation (AWBF) has launched a new trademark called Afghan-Mark, which is a certification brand label that will be carried on exported carpets made by Afghan women who are employed by women-owned or women-managed carpet-making businesses there. The new AfghanMark brand label on a carpet certifies that the Afghan women who made that carpet were paid fair wages while working in inspected conditions with no illegal child labor and with access to health care and education, including literacy training.

“This initiative is a major humanitarian, educational and business development breakthrough by Afghan women for Afghan women in the post-Taliban era of our country’s history,” said AWBF spokeswoman Halima Kazem of Kabul, Afghanistan. “For centuries, many Afghan women have toiled for much of their lives on looms, sometimes barely eking out a living, while making the hand-knotted, world-famous Afghan carpets that are emblematic of the artisan culture of Afghanistan.” Many of these hardworking women today are illiterate with limited social, healthcare or educational opportunities. Some are war widows. Most are mothers and many are breadwinners for their families. They sometimes work on carpet looms for wages as low as one dollar per day, or less, while making high-end, heirloom quality carpets that can sell for premium prices.

Currently, eight women-owned or women-managed carpet companies or consortiums employing 24,000 weavers have signed on to the AfghanMark brand certification program. “We expect the numbers to continue to grow as more companies, carpet studios and artisans join,” Kazem noted, adding that the AfghanMark trademark brand means empowerment for working Afghan women not through charity, but through business, with fair pay and labor rights. “For them, the AfghanMark brand means more and better food for their families, education, healthcare and, above all, greater respect for Afghan women who, under Taliban rule and in other eras, were often treated poorly.”

Only heirloom quality carpets, which the AWBF certifies as a particularly high standard of carpet, will be allowed to carry the new AfghanMark certification trademark. Each carpet will be numbered and have with it a brief story of the woman or women who wove the carpet.

For more information, call Aid to Artisans at 860.947.3344.