Thousands of beauty salons closed permanently across Afghanistan on Tuesday, with the entry into force of a decree to this effect from the Taliban authorities, which deprives women of one of their rare sources of income and one of their last spaces of freedom.
Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban have barred women from most secondary schools, universities and public administration, barred them from entering parks, gardens, sports halls and public baths, and forced them to wear full coverings when leaving their homes.
The decision, announced in a decree published at the end of June, to close the thousands of beauty salons throughout the country, run by women, deprives them of what is often the only source of income for their families, and of one of the last places where they could meet freely, outside of their homes where they are increasingly confined.
“We used to come here and spend time discussing our future. Now even that right has been taken away from us,” complains Bahara, a client of a salon in Kabul.
“Women are not allowed to enter places of entertainment, so what can we do? Where can we have fun? Where can we meet to meet? she adds.
Kamela started working in a beauty salon a year ago when she lost her job in the media and was no longer able to continue her studies. The sole support of her family of five, this 19-year-old young woman does not know what will become of her.
“The closure of beauty salons means that all doors are closed to me. I can’t work and live as a woman in Afghanistan,” she said, braiding the long black hair of one of the salon’s latest clients. “Maybe tomorrow the Taliban will decree that women don’t have the right to breathe.”
“A blow” for women
Manizha, 28, opened her salon in 2018 and has since trained some 200 women. Today his 25 employees, who are all the main sources of income for their families, are back to square one.
“I’ve worked so hard and now it’s all gone,” she says. I stayed in the country, paid taxes to the government, and now they’re closing our beauty salon. It is a blow for the economy of the country and for us”.
Thousands of women working in the administration have already lost their jobs after the Taliban took power or are paid to stay at home, idle.
Maybe tomorrow the Taliban will decree that women are not allowed to breathe.
The ban on beauty parlors will cause an additional 60,000 women, working in 12,000 establishments, to lose their income, according to the Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Afghanistan.
As of Tuesday, many salons in Kabul had already closed, while others waited until the last minute to do so.
One owner said she was forced to sign a letter saying she was voluntarily closing her establishment and giving up her license to operate.
“It was a terrible scene: they arrived with military vehicles and guns,” she said, on condition of anonymity. “What can a woman do in the face of such insistence and pressure? »
extravagant sums
Last week, security forces fired into the air and used water cannons to disperse dozens of Afghan women protesting in Kabul against the decree.
The Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue, confirming the measure a few days after the promulgation of the decree, had specified that the salons had one month, until Tuesday, to close, in order to have time to sell their stock.
He had justified the closure by the fact that extravagant sums are spent in salons for weddings, considering it to be too heavy a burden for poor families, and by the fact that some of the treatments offered did not respect Islamic law.
Having too much makeup on the face prevents women from properly performing ablution before prayers, the ministry explained, with false eyelashes and braids also prohibited.
A written copy of the decree seen by AFP said the decision was based “on a verbal instruction from the Supreme Leader” of Afghanistan, Hibatullah Akhundzada.
Beauty parlors proliferated in Kabul and major Afghan cities during the 20-year occupation by US and NATO forces before the Taliban returned to power.
They were considered safe places for women to meet in the absence of men and had also enabled many women to set up their own businesses.
In a report presented at the end of June to the United Nations Human Rights Council, Richard Bennett, special rapporteur for Afghanistan, estimated that the situation of women and girls in the country “was one of the worst in the world”.
The “serious, systematic and institutionalized discrimination against women and girls is at the heart of the ideology and the power of the Taliban”, assured Mr. Bennett.