The Taliban arrested women in Kabul for wearing “bad hijab” as part of their efforts to reinforce Afghanistan’s severe female dress code regulations, a spokesman at the country’s vice and virtue ministry said on Thursday, January 4.
The latest development adds to the growing difficulties encountered by Afghan women and girls, who are already barred from education, employment, and public settings by the Taliban since they seized power in 2021.
Abdul Ghafar Farooq, a spokesman for the vice and virtue ministry, did not indicate how many women had been jailed for what constitutes “bad hijab.” However, he said that the arrests were made three days ago. He added that female police officers were sent to arrest the women after they failed to follow the ministry’s advice of dressing appropriately.
The crackdown emphasizes the Taliban’s austerity measures since taking power in 2021, which are similar to those in neighbouring Iran, which has imposed the hijab for decades.
In May 2022, the Taliban issued a diktat requiring women to cover their faces and only reveal their eyes and promote the head-to-toe burqa, similar to restrictions imposed under the Taliban’s previous administration between 1996 and 2001. According to the Taliban spokesman, the ministry has been receiving complaints about women wearing incorrect hijab in Kabul for the past two years.
In response to the concerns, the ministry issued guidelines to ladies and asked them to carefully adhere to the dress code.
“These are the few limited women who spread bad hijab in Islamic society. They violated Islamic values and rituals and encouraged society and other respected sisters to go for bad hijab. Police will refer the matter to judicial authorities or the woman will be released on strict bail. In every province, those who go without hijab will be arrested,” Farooq warned.
Restrictions on women by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan
Notably, since the Taliban government came to power in Afghanistan in 2021, it has imposed draconian restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly, and movement for women and girls. Women are prohibited from holding important positions in all spheres of life and are required to adhere to the strict Islamic dress code. They are also excluded from employment and education. Women are also barred from entering parks and gyms and from travelling without a male relative.
This recent restriction on women’s rights is part of a systematic and broader range of regressive measures taken by the Taliban since the terror outfit regained control over Afghan soil, two years ago.
Teenage girls and women have been barred from classrooms, gyms, and parks. They have also been banned from working for the United Nations. Women are forced to wear only such dresses which would allow them to reveal only their eyes.
Women in Afghanistan can only work in hospitals as nurses and doctors. Currently, this is the last and only job women are allowed to perform under Taliban rule. However, media reports claim that these increasing restrictions have forced women to work secretively from home as teachers and makeup artists.
From 1996 to 2001, the previous Taliban regime had also imposed sweeping restrictions on Women’s rights and curbed their freedoms. For Afghan women, the recent closure of beauty parlours reminds them of the dark times under the previous Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
However, when the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001, beauty salons reopened and operated normally till the Taliban regained power two years ago. Although the Taliban didn’t immediately shut down hair and beauty salons, they asked shops to cover and spray-paint their windows and posters to conceal the faces of women on them.
Last year in January, the Taliban government instructed the country’s female clothing retailers to mask the mannequins showing off the latest fashions. The mannequins with their heads covered have come to represent the Taliban’s puritanical rule over Afghanistan.
Mahsa Amini from Iran was killed for wearing an improper hijab
The crackdown emphasizes the Taliban’s austerity measures since taking power in 2021, which are similar to those in neighbouring Iran, which has imposed the hijab for decades. Earlier in the year 2022, a 22-year-old Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini was reported dead after being brutally beaten by the ‘Morality Police’ for wearing an ‘improper hijab’.
The woman was spotted by the ‘morality police’ while she was wearing an improper hijab that showcased some of her hair. She was taken to a ‘re-education class’ where she was allegedly tortured by the police leading to the death of her brain.
Amini’s death sparked global outrage condemning Iran’s law for treating women in such a manner. Several women cut their hair to protest against Amini’s death. However, the Iranian police maintained that the woman had died due to illness and not due to the actions of the country police.