Your support helps us tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to big tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the finances of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word,’ which shines a light on American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know the importance of analyzing the facts of messaging. .
At such a critical moment in American history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to continue sending journalists to tell both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to block Americans from our reporting and analysis with a paywall. We believe that quality journalism should be available to everyone, and paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes a difference.
Women in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan are currently prohibited for most common activities their counterparts in other parts of the world they see it as their natural right – studying, working, going to the salon or the gym, a midwife, or even public speaking or prayer.
The ever-increasing dictates for nearly 50 million women in Afghanistan, imposed by hardline Islamist regime which initially promised a progressive society, were global condemned as gender apartheid.
The cat has more rights than women in Afghanistan, a Hollywood star Meryl Streep said in Septemberspeaking at an event on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
“A cat can go sit on the front chair and feel the sun on its face. It can chase a squirrel into the park. A squirrel has more rights than a girl in Afghanistan today, because public parks are closed to women and girls by the Taliban,” she said. Streep, shining a light on the impoverished rights of Afghan women.
When the Taliban were last in power in 1996-2001, the girls were he is not allowed to attend school and women are prohibited from work and education. Their rule today, decades later, it reminds of the dark reality of their previous time in power, says Zahra Joya, the founder of the Afghan news website Rukhshana who runs the news operations with her team of women in exile.
Here is a list of activities that are prohibited or restricted for Afghan women:
Education
Within a month of taking control of Kabulthe Taliban Ministry of Education banned girls and women from entering schools. However, they announced the reopening of schools to all male teachers and students, drawing condemnation from the rest of the world. Taliban leaders also announced that girls were banned from entering they study after the sixth grade.
The ban was extended to colleges and universities in December 2022. Some of the students were turned away from the threshold of their universities with the gun of Taliban fighters when they tried to return to their classrooms.
Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban is the only country in the world with which severe restrictions on women’s education. Several local and high officials, incl chief spokesman Zabiullah Mujahidthey said the Taliban authorities would inevitably reopen schools while adhering to Islamic Sharia law, but they have he has not announced any steps to invite girls and women back to educational institutions.
A job
The Taliban banned women from working in government and private jobs, including working with non-governmental organizationsaffects international aid work.
Women workers under the NATO-led administration in Afghanistan have been asked to return to their homes in Kabul in September 2021, marking the first unofficial ban on women’s work. A senior Taliban leader told Reuters that women would not be allowed to work alongside men in government ministries.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Vices and Virtues, which replaced the Ministry of Women, ordered on 7 May 2022 that women would have to stay indoors unless they had important work outside their homes. It also required that they travel in company Mehram – male companion.
With excluding nurses and midwives in health sector, The Taliban generally forbid Afghan women from other types of work. Health workers say even women working in hospitals face risk harassment by the Taliban moral police who enforce dress code and gender segregation for female workers.
Midwives
In the latest ban this year, women are barred from training as midwives, a move that human rights experts said will directly threaten the lives of girls and women.
Trainee midwifery students, who have been ordered to stop attending classes, have appealed to Taliban leaders to allow them to continue their studies.
Midwifery was one of the last remaining professions untouched by Taliban restrictions, mainly because male doctors were not allowed to touch or interact with patients. But in early December, sources close to the Taliban’s public health ministry said they had been ordered to close medical facilities for female students until further notice.
Several midwifery facilities in different provinces of Afghanistan have confirmed that the ban is in effect, leaving girls and women in the country without any access to medical care.
Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world – an estimated one woman dies every two hours.
Travels
The Taliban order that a woman must be covered from head to toe when she leaves her home accompanied by a male guardian has severely limited women’s freedom.
The diktat officially requires that any woman traveling more than 75 km (46 miles) or leaving the country be followed by a Mehram. If women violate the dress code restrictions, it is the male relatives who would face punishment.
Taxi drivers would also be fined if they agreed to drive a woman without a suitable male escort under the new regulations.
Sports
The Taliban banned it all sports for girls and women and intimidated former athletes into silence after taking control.
In November 2022, the Taliban officially ordered that women be banned from gymnasiums and parks.
Even before the Taliban took control, women’s sports faced opposition in Afghanistan’s deeply conservative society, which saw it as a violation of women’s modesty and their role in society. However, sports were not banned and Afghan female athletes trained in the country and competed in international championships. Most of them are now part of refugee teams and training in exile.
Cultural activities
Afghan women can they no longer visit national parks and public parks. In November 2022, Taliban spokesman Mohammed Akef Mohajer said the group had “tried everything” not to close parks and gyms to women and had allocated separate days of the week for access by men and women. They later claimed that the Taliban’s hardline rules had been broken and the authorities had to order the parks to be closed completely – but the rule only applied to women.
In August 2023, the Taliban government banned women from visiting Band-e-Amir National Park in Bamiyan province, citing that the women who visited were improperly wearing the hijab, or head covering.
Afghanistan’s Acting Minister of Virtue and Vice, Mohammad Khaled Hanafi, said he was going to the viewing park “was optional”.
In August of this year, clothing stores in Kabul were ordered to hide the faces of mannequins at the behest of the Taliban.
Personal care
In July 2023, the Taliban prohibited women’s salons and salons, closing their last places for recreation and relaxation. The Taliban said that beauty salons must be closed because they offered services prohibited by Islam and caused economic hardship for the families of the grooms in the wedding festivities.
Taliban fighters on the streets for days followed the shutdown of the salon and beauty salon services.
Clothing restrictions
Afghan women must they completely cover their bodiesincluding their faces, in heavy clothing in public places to prevent men from committing vice, under new “vice and virtue” laws passed by the Taliban last month.
This is an extension of a previous Taliban ban in May 2022 when they ordered all female TV news anchors in Afghanistan to wear face masks while on air.
Female voices
There are also Afghan women forbidden to read, sing or speak in public by the Taliban in their so-called effort to discourage vice and promote virtue. Female voices are considered a source of temptationaccording to the Taliban’s interpretation of Sharia law. If a a woman can be heard singingeven from her home, she will be punished for breaking the law.
“Whenever an adult woman leaves her home out of necessity, she must hide her voice, face and body,” according to the new rules.
Women are also forbidden to look directly at a man who is not their husband or blood relative.