Mrs Ahmadi sits on the floor of a spacious restaurant in Hazara Town, tucked away in Quetta’s western corner. A cup of green tea grows cold beside her. On her phone are photos of her life’s work: intricate, hand-woven Persian carpets in rich crimsons and sapphires.

For over two decades, Hazara Town has been her home. Now, at 29, orders have stopped coming. Her looms are silent. “The threads have been cut,” she says, her eyes fixed on something beyond the restaurant walls.

On the wall above, a portrait of Abdul Ali Mazari watches over the room — a Hazara political leader captured and killed by the Taliban in 1995. For the predominantly Shia Hazara minority he championed, brutally targeted by the Sunni Taliban for decades, Mazari remains a symbol of resistance and martyrdom. For Mrs Ahmadi, his image is a daily reminder that return to Afghanistan is not an option.

An Afghan refugee master carpet-weaver spent 25 years building a life and honing her craft in Quetta. Now, Pakistan’s deportation campaign has frozen her business, leaving her trapped between the country that no longer wants her and the Taliban regime she cannot return to…

The Crackdown

Mrs Ahmadi is a master carpet weaver and teacher, skills she learned not from passion but out of necessity. For years, she earned less than 50,000 rupees monthly, training other refugee women in the craft that keeps many families afloat.

But six months ago, the situation changed drastically, as orders nosedived. Unsurprisingly, it coincided with the second phase of Pakistan’s drive to deport undocumented Afghans. Mrs Ahmadi says the decline it was triggered by the departure of community members who were involved in marketing their wares through word-of-mouth.

While a large number of Hazaras have lived in Pakistan, including Quetta, for generations and hold citizenship, many remain undocumented. It has as much to do with bureaucratic delays as with safety fears. In 2023, the Supreme Court observed that every child born in Pakistan had the right to citizenship during a suo motu hearing on Hazara community issues. Yet Hazaras remain reluctant to approach the National Database & Registration Authority (Nadra) offices — community members have been targeted even there.

The deportation drive has created a climate of fear in Hazara Town. Police crackdowns make it impossible for Mrs Ahmadi’s students to reach the workshop. Customers have stopped placing orders. The economic lifeline is fraying.

For Mrs Ahmadi and Quetta’s Hazara community, deportation means returning to the same persecution they fled.

A Life in Exile

Mrs Ahmadi arrived in Pakistan in 1999, a three-year-old fleeing the first Taliban regime. Her family, ethnic Shia Hazaras from northern Afghanistan, reached Peshawar with little beyond the clothes they wore. Her grandfather had been killed during Taliban rule — part of the systematic targeting of Hazaras that made staying impossible.

After 11 months in Peshawar, her family sought safety in Quetta’s Hazara enclaves — gated ghettos on the eastern and western corners of the city, where the minority community clusters for protection. Mrs Ahmadi has lived there ever since, building a life and a business over 25 years.

The work takes a physical toll: chronic headaches from squinting at intricate patterns, respiratory problems from wool dust. “But it is our culture,” she says, “and it keeps us alive.”

The carpets she creates can sell for 50,000 rupees or more, depending on size and detail. She gets orders from within Pakistan and abroad — or did, until six months ago, when they reduced to a trickle.

An Economy Under Threat

Mrs Ahmadi is not alone in this craft. A local non-governmental organisation, The Taraqee Foundation, with support from UNHCR, runs a training centre within Hazara Town, where 160 Afghan women learn carpet weaving, embroidery and tailoring. They receive a year of training with a stipend, and subsequently tool kits and market connections to start earning.

The work these women produce has real value. A three-metre carpet at the centre might be worth Rs65,000 wholesale but could sell for over Rs200,000 in the open market. Yet the weavers’ leverage remains minimal — they need buyers more than buyers need them, and everyone knows it.

The refugee craft economy has woven itself into Quetta’s commercial fabric over decades. But that integration means nothing if the weavers themselves are expelled.

Nowhere to Go

Mrs Ahmadi has other skills — she teaches English as well, a hobby that hints at ambitions beyond survival. She dreams of being an independent businesswoman, of real stability.

“I would love to go back to Afghanistan if girls like me had the freedom to study and work,” she says. But with the Taliban back in power since 2021, that door is sealed. Women have been banned from universities, most workplaces, even many public spaces.

Pakistan, which has “felt like home” for 25 years, is closing its door too.

She pays for the tea. The thermos sits empty between us.

Loose Threads

Outside, Hazara Town’s streets pulse with nervous energy. Families watch the news, track rumours, and wonder who will be taken next.

Mrs Ahmadi’s carpets are built on a stable framework of warp and weft, each thread locked in place to create intricate, lasting patterns. Her own life’s pattern was woven the same way for over two decades — education, skills, students, orders and a sense of permanence.

Now those threads are being pulled loose. What remains is a scatter of disconnected strands with nowhere to tie them.

The writer is a member of staff.
X: @Akbar_notezai

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 12th, 2025