Despite everything that has happened to her country since the Taliban took power last August, 29-year-old Nafisa still never believed that the day would come when she would not be able to feel the sun on her face as she walked the streets of Kabul.
Yet on Saturday, the ominous Taliban ministry for the promotion of virtue ordered Nafisa, along with millions of women in Afghanistan, ideally not to leave the house at all. If they do, they must be completely veiled and never show their faces in public.
“The Taliban have no plans for Afghanistan other than imposing restrictions on women,” said Nafisa, who said she rejected the Taliban’s latest attempts to overshadow Afghan women. “I do not accept the obligatory hijab and I will never wear a burqa.
Restrictions require women to wear a burqa, a head-to-toe cover that allows women to see only through a small grille at eye level, or a full niqab that covers the face but not the eyes. Most Afghan women already wear some form of hijab, but many in cities like Kabul have previously covered only their hair.
Along with the decree, the Taliban issued a detailed set of restrictions and penalties that leave women’s family members accountable and threatened with fines and imprisonment if seen in public. If women working for the government come out without veils, they will be fired, and the Taliban will also lose their jobs if their relatives do not comply with the new restrictions.
The new restrictions require women to wear a burqa or a full niqab. Photo: EPA
For many women in Kabul, the decree comes amid a campaign of harassment and violence by the Taliban and their street teachers, which has intensified in recent months. Young women in the capital, who had never lived under Taliban rule before last summer, say religious police have been encouraged to roam the city’s streets apologizing for questioning, intimidating and beating women for wearing colorful clothes, jeans or jeans. travel without a male companion.
Nazanin, a student at a state university, was beaten by the Taliban for sitting in the front seat of a taxi about two weeks ago in Kabul. “I was hit twice in the back. I felt like my bones were broken. “
Nazanin said that after she was beaten, the taxi driver was arrested and taken to the police station.
Shabnam, 23, who lives in Kabul, says she no longer feels safe walking the streets. Three weeks ago, the Taliban stopped her 12-year-old cousin, detained her and cut her hair in public because she was not completely covered in a scarf. Shortly afterwards, her cousin and family fled the country.
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“The Taliban have taken away my basic right, which is the right to choose my clothes, and that is very painful for me,” she said.
Earlier this year, the Taliban arrested several women protesting against the violent hijab and held them in an unknown location until they were forced to release after international outrage.
The latest restrictions are part of a concerted campaign to reverse decades of progress in women’s rights across the country. When they seized power in August 2021, the Taliban said they had changed and would respect women’s right to public life, but have since taken away women’s right to travel alone, to work outside of health care and education.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) condemned the veil decree as the latest attack on women’s rights, but said it believed it would be strictly enforced despite widespread international condemnation.
“The information received from UNAMA implies that this is a formal directive, not a recommendation, and that it will be implemented and enforced,” the statement said.
Names changed
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