KABUL: The Taliban in Afghanistan have issued a new diktat which bans operation of beauty salons by women, leaving females in the country with few avenues of work.
“All beauty salons operated by women in Kabul and other provinces should be banned immediately and follow our order,” the Afghan Ministry of Vice and Virtue said in the latest directive on Monday. A deadline of one month has been given to shut down beauty salons run by women.
Taliban warned that violators would have to face legal action, even as it continues to suppress women from performing visible roles in society and forcing them to stay at home. It has also been decreed by the Taliban that women should be dressed in a manner that only leaves their eyes revealed.
The United Nations has been repeatedly condemning Taliban’s restrictions in the past, which include prohibition on women to pursue any education above the sixth grade. Women are restricted from working either in the government or private sector and cannot visit parks or use gyms.
According to the UN, the oppressive rules imposed against women make it next to impossible for recognition of the Taliban government by the international community.
The Taliban shut down beauty salons when they were in power in the years between 1996 and 2001, as part of a number of measures imposed by them in Afghanistan. However, the salons were reopened in the period after US-led forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001.
Beauty salons continued to be open even after the Taliban reassumed power in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of US forces two years ago. However, shop windows would usually remain covered up and faces on images of women displayed outside the salons were spray painted over.
The Taliban government has not come out with an explanation regarding the necessity of such a ban, or provided information on any alternative means of work available to women once they shut down the salons.
At present, the only job that women in Afghanistan can do is work in hospitals as nurses and doctors.
Jamila Afghan, a women’s rights activist who escaped from Afghanistan and now resides in Turkey, reportedly said that the Taliban doesn’t consider women to be human beings but considers them as a commodity to be owned and oppressed. The latest ban is feared to affect thousands of makeup artists and close down hundreds of beauty shops nationwide, she added.
A makeup artist opined that they need not go out of the home if men in the family had jobs. She lamented that they would starve to death, looking for a way out. She feared that the Taliban’s diktat will kill them.
A Kabul resident Abdul Khabir explained that the government should make a framework of rules, in a manner that neither Islam is damaged nor the country.
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