Can’t work, sing, travel, study: All the ways the Taliban are restricting lives of women in Afghanistan

Afghan women cannot be heard in public, even if it is to offer prayers, and have been banned from schools, workplaces, salons, gyms and national parks under the current Taliban rule. Arpan Rai reports

Women in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan are currently barred from most of the ordinary activities their counterparts elsewhere in the world see as their natural right – studying, working, going to a salon or the gym, midwifery, and even speaking or praying in public.

The steadily increasing diktats on Afghanistan’s nearly 50 million women, imposed by the hardline Islamist regime which initially promised a progressive society, have been globally condemned as gender apartheid.

A female cat has more rights than a woman in Afghanistan, Hollywood star Meryl Streep said in September, speaking at an event on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

"A cat may go sit on her front stoop and feel the sun on her face. She may chase a squirrel into the park. A squirrel has more rights than a girl in Afghanistan today, because the public parks have been closed to women and girls by the Taliban," Streep said, shining a light on the depleted rights of Afghan women.

When the Taliban were last in power from 1996-2001 girls were not allowed to attend school and women were banned from work and education. Their rule today, decades later, resembles the grim reality of their previous time in power, says Zahra Joya, the founder of Afghan news website Rukhshana who runs the news operations with her team of women in exile.

Here is a list of activities from which Afghan women are banned or restricted:

Education

Within a month of taking control of Kabul, the Taliban’s education ministry banned girls and women from schools. However, they announced the reopening of schools for all male teachers and students, leading to condemnation from the rest of the world. The Taliban leaders also announced that the girls were barred from studying beyond the sixth grade.

The ban was extended to colleges and universities in December 2022. Some of the female students were turned back from the doorstep of their universities at gunpoint by Taliban fighters when they attempted to return to their classrooms.

Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is the only country in the world with harsh restrictions on female education. Several local and senior officials, including chief spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid, have said the Taliban authorities will reopen the schools inevitably with adherence to Islamic Sharia laws but have not announced any step to invite girls and women back to educational institutions.

Work

The Taliban have banned women from government and private jobs, including working with NGOs, affecting international aid work.

Women workers under the Nato-led administration in Afghanistan were asked to go back to their homes in Kabul in September 2021, marking the first unofficial ban on women’s work. A senior Taliban leader told Reuters women would not be allowed to work alongside men in government ministries.

The Taliban’s Vice and Virtue Ministry, which replaced the Women’s Ministry, ordered on 7 May 2022 that women will be required to stay in unless they have important work outside of their houses. It also required them to travel in the company of mehram – a male chaperone.

With the exception of nurses and midwives in the healthcare sector, Afghan women are generally barred from other kinds of work by the Taliban. Healthcare workers say even women serving in hospitals face the risk of harassment by the Taliban’s morality police who monitor the dress code and gender segregation for female workers.

Midwifery

In the latest ban this year, women have been banned from training to become midwives, a move that human rights experts said will directly imperil the lives of girls and women.

Trainee midwifery students, who have been ordered to no longer attend classes, urged Taliban leaders to allow them to continue studying.

Midwifery was one of the last remaining professions untouched by the Taliban’s restrictions, mainly because male medical practitioners are not allowed to touch or interact with female patients. But in early December, sources close to the Taliban’s public health ministry said they have received orders to shut medical institutions to female students until further notice.

Several midwifery institutions in different provinces of Afghanistan confirmed the ban is in place, leaving girls and women in the country without any access to medical care.

Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of deaths in childbirth in the world – with one woman estimated to die every two hours.

Travel

The Taliban order that a woman has to be covered from head to toe when stepping outside of her house accompanied by a male guardian has severely curtailed women’s freedom.

The diktat officially requires any woman travelling more than 75km (46 miles) or leaving the country to be chaperoned by a mehram. If women break the dress code restrictions, it is the male relatives who would face punishment.

Taxi drivers would also be punished if they agreed to drive a woman without a suitable male escort, according to the new set of rules.

Sports

The Taliban have banned all sports for girls and women and intimidated former female athletes into silence after taking over control.

In November 2022, the Taliban officially ordered women to be banned from entering gymnasiums and parks.

Even before the Taliban took control, women’s sports faced opposition in Afghanistan’s deeply conservative society that viewed it as a violation of women’s modesty and of their role in society. However, sports was not banned and Afghan women 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 no longer visit national parks and public parks. In November 2022, Taliban spokesperson Mohammed Akef Mohajer claimed the group “tried its best” not to shut down parks and gyms for women and allocated separate days of the week for male and female access. They later claimed the Taliban’s hardline rules were flouted and authorities had to order a complete shutdown of parks – but the rule applied only to women.

In August 2023, the Taliban government banned women from visiting the Band-e-Amir national park in Bamiyan province, citing improperly worn hijab or head covering by women visitors.

Afghanistan’s acting minister of virtue and vice, Mohammad Khaled Hanafi, said going to the park for sightseeing "was not obligatory”.

In August this year, clothes shops in Kabul were ordered to hide the faces of mannequins by order of the Taliban.

Personal care

In July 2023, the Taliban banned women’s salons and parlours, shutting down their last places of recreation and relaxation. The Taliban said beauty salons had to be shut down because they offered services forbidden by Islam and inflicted economic hardship for the grooms’ families in wedding festivities.

For days, the Taliban’s fighters on the streets monitored the shutdown of salon and beauty parlour services.

Clothing restrictions

Afghan women must completely veil their bodies, including their faces, in thick clothing in public spaces to prevent men from committing vice, according to the new “vice and virtue” laws by the Taliban last month.

This is an extension of the Taliban’s previous ban from May 2022 when it ordered all women TV news anchors in Afghanistan to wear face coverings while on air.

Women’s voices

Afghan women are also banned from reading, singing, or speaking in public by the Taliban in their so-called bid to discourage vice and promote virtue. Women’s voices are deemed to be a source of temptation, according to the Taliban’s interpretation of Sharia law. If a woman is heard singing, even from within her own home, she will be punished for violating the law.

“Whenever an adult woman leaves her home out of necessity, she is obliged to conceal her voice, face, and body,” according to the new rules.

Women are also forbidden from looking directly at a man who is not their husband or blood relative.