- The Taliban leadership has ordered all Afghan women to wear full veils in public.
- Women should therefore cover themselves in such a way that only their eyes can be seen. In addition, their clothes must not be tight-fitting.
- The Taliban government sets out the regulation in a decree and at the same time recommends that women wear a burqa.
According to the Taliban government, this is traditional and respectful. The dress code is another Taliban restriction of women’s rights in Afghanistan. “We want our sisters to be able to live in dignity and security,” said Khalid Hanafi, deputy minister of the Taliban’s Ministry of Vices and Virtues.
The Taliban leadership has thus embarked on a tough course that confirms the worst fears of human rights activists and is likely to further complicate the Taliban’s dealings with the already suspicious international community. The decree commemorates similar restrictions on women during the previous Taliban rule between 1996 and 2001.
Legend:
“Those women who are not too old or too young must cover their faces except for their eyes,” said Shir Mohammad, an official at the Ministry of Morals and Virtues.
Reuters
The decree also added that women are better off staying at home if they don’t have important work to do outside. “Islamic principles and Islamic ideology are more important to us than anything else,” Hanafi said.
No reopening of schools for older girls
The Taliban had previously decided against reopening schools for girls from the sixth grade. In doing so, they broke an earlier promise to appease their supporters.
That decision has complicated the Taliban’s efforts to attract potential international donors at a time when the country is grappling with an increasingly deep humanitarian crisis.
Disputed Taliban
The Taliban were overthrown by a US-led coalition in 2001 for harboring al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and returned after him chaotic withdrawal of Americans back to power last year. Since taking power in August last year, the Taliban leadership has been at odds over how to make the transition from war to government.
The hardliners are opposed to the more pragmatic among them. Many Afghans are angry that many younger generation Taliban, like Sirajuddin Haqqani, are educating their girls in Pakistan, while in Afghanistan, women and girls have been subjected to their repressive enactments since coming to power.
Since the return of the Taliban, girls in most parts of the country are only allowed to go to school up to the sixth grade. Universities opened across much of the country earlier this year, but since the Taliban took power, their enactments have been unpredictable.
While education remains accessible to all in a handful of provinces, most provinces have closed educational institutions for girls and women. The religious-leaning Taliban government fears that taking in girls past sixth grade could alienate their rural base, Hashmi said. In the capital, Kabul, private schools and universities operated without interruption.