Against the Taliban: How Afghan women defend themselves against dress codes

#DoNotTouchMyClothes
Afghan women protest against the Taliban’s dress code

Afghan women fight for the right to wear their traditional clothes.

© Shutterstock

Whether green or red, decorated with colorful beads and embroidery or dark tones with radiant highlights: Afghan traditional dresses are anything but monochrome and boring. The Taliban now want to ban this traditional clothing – with #DoNotTouchOurClothes women are fighting for a piece of their freedom.

The traditional dresses are mostly made of heavy, noble fabrics. Each of them is a handmade one-of-a-kind, usually with a wide skirt, perfect for swirling in the classical dances. Afghan women wear a slightly more reduced but no less colorful variant in their everyday life, whether to work or to university.

Afghan women protest against the Taliban’s dress code

Some swap the pants worn under clothes for jeans. Others don’t swing the colorful scarves around their shoulders, but drape them around their heads. But that should end now.

For a few weeks now, the Taliban have seized power in Afghanistan. With the withdrawal of the US soldiers, the Afghans were at their mercy. Women and girls in particular have to fear for their lives right now, many are hiding out of fear of being next on the list.

Afghan women continue to fight for their rights with #DoNotTouchMyClothes

With the takeover of power, women are threatened with pure Sharia law in the worst case. So a life without any civil rights. Girls would then no longer be allowed to go to school, women would no longer be allowed to work and would be pushed back from decision-making bodies. There is no longer any protection against violence. The work of the past 20 years, in which so many women have stood up for their rights, threatens to collapse.

But there are still courageous women who stand up and stand up for the freedom of women in their country – knowing that it could cost them their lives. With #DoNotTouchMyClothes, the former history professor Bahar Jalali initiated an action against the strict dress code of the Taliban, she explained in an interview with the BBC.

Men and women in Afghanistan are now being taught separately again

The Taliban initially agreed that women could continue to work and attend university, but only in compliance with Sharia law. Men and women are taught separately and “decent clothing” should be worn. The Taliban understand niqabs and burqas – a veiling of the female body – to be civilized.

The professor’s action followed a demonstration in downtown Kabul, where some women spoke out in favor of the “rights of the Taliban” and marched through the streets in full veil.

The aim of the campaign is to show that black burqas are not the traditional robes

Dr. Bahar Jalali cannot accept that this is the only image the world has of Afghan women: “I want to inform the world that the clothes that have been seen in the media do not reflect our culture and identity.” Many women followed their example and shared pictures with their traditional robes on social networks.

Jalali herself posted a picture on Twitter of herself in a green dress decorated with floral embroidery. Her main concern is that the “identity and sovereignty of Afghanistan” will be attacked.

“The black burqa was never part of Afghan culture”

“The black burqa was never part of Afghan culture,” tweeted the Virginia-based human rights activist Spozhmay Maseed. “Our traditional clothing represents our rich culture and history spanning over 5000 years. Every Afghan should be proud of who they are.”

However, it can already be seen that women in Afghanistan dress much more modestly and that many are returning to veiled robes, according to the BBC. The university minister, Abdul Baqi Haqqani, said that the veil could become mandatory again at universities, the form of which has not yet been determined.

Sources used: bbc.de, rnd.de

slr
Brigitte