The Taliban government announced on Tuesday that it has ordered beauty salons to close within a month in Afghanistan, a new measure aimed at further shutting women out of public life.
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Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban have barred women from most secondary schools, universities and public administrations. They also largely banned them from working with the United Nations and international NGOs.
Women are also not allowed to enter parks, gardens, gymnasiums and public baths, travel unaccompanied by a male relative and must cover themselves fully when leaving their homes.
Mohammad Sadeq Akif Muhajir, spokesman for the Ministry of Vice Prevention and Virtue Promotion, confirmed to AFP on Tuesday the closure of beauty salons, which has been mentioned on social networks for several days.
He did not justify this decision. “Once they’re closed, we’ll let the media know why,” he said.
Salons have been given a month to close so they can sell their stock without loss, he explained.
According to a written copy of the decree obtained by AFP, the decision was “based on verbal direction from the supreme leader” of Afghanistan, Hibatullah Akhundzada.
During the 20-year occupation by US and NATO forces, before the Taliban returned to power, beauty salons in Kabul and major Afghan cities had proliferated.
They were considered safe meeting places for women in the absence of men and had also enabled many women to start their own businesses.
In a report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council last week, Richard Bennett, special rapporteur on Afghanistan, called the situation of women and girls in the country “one of the worst in the world”.
“Serious, systematic and institutionalized discrimination against women and girls is at the core of the Taliban’s ideology and power,” Bennett said.
Hibatullah Akhundzada claimed in late June that the women living in the country had been rescued from “oppression” by the Taliban government and their status as “free and dignified people” had been restored.
The supreme leader, whose public appearances are very rare and who rules the country by decree from Kandahar (south), the cradle of the Taliban, explained that everything was done to ensure women “a comfortable and prosperous life in accordance with Sharia law “ (Islamic law) to guarantee).