A new setback for women’s rights in Afghanistan has begun after months of misogynistic rules and other laws.
Weeks pass, and women’s rights are still being reduced a little more in Afghanistan. Since the Taliban regained power two years ago, harassment and discrimination have multiplied. From now on, they are excluded from school after sixth grade, prohibited from working in the public service, in NGOs, or with the United Nations.
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The Taliban also require them to cover their faces and stay at home. Women are not allowed to leave their town without the presence of a male relative. In short, the only thing left, as a tiny freedom, was the management of a business. Last fragment of public existence: these beauty salons, which, in addition to making women work, allow them to meet. Intolerable for the Taliban, the closure decree was therefore announced on Tuesday, July 4.
Despite the promises made, just after the reconquest of Kabul, in August 2021, when the Americans evacuated the country in disorder. At that time, the Taliban were anxious to give another image on the international scene. They promise not to return to previous decades. Women will have the right to work, “at the same level as men“, explains a spokesperson. In the meantime, a few dozen women have taken the risk of demonstrating for their rights in the streets of Kabul. Many have seen courage in this, of course, but also a sign of change. A vision that is probably a little too optimistic.
An oral order from the Supreme Leader
The closure of beauty salons is a decision that fell from above. An oral order from the supreme leader of the Taliban, the mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada. This gives an idea of how the law is forged. As for the reason: impossible to know more. Agence France Presse interviewed the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue. He did not want to give an explanation, at least until the decision was fully executed. “Move around, there’s nothing to see”, therefore, and especially not beauty salons.
That said, the Taliban are not a single bloc. They are crossed by rivalries. So there is on one side the supreme leader, very influential but almost invisible. It is located in Kandahar, the big city in southern Afghanistan. On the other side, the government sits in Kabul, the capital, in the northeast of the country.
A double center of power that gives rise to internal quarrels. Even if it is complicated to measure the strength of these dissensions. Journalists on site are rare. It has also been six months, almost to the day, that our colleague Mortaza Behboudi has been imprisoned. Franco-Afghan journalist, he was arrested in Kabul on January 7th.