After Ordering To Stop Issuing Driving Licenses To Women, Taliban Now Makes Burqa Mandatory
It seems like the Taliban is done with trying to project themselves as 'moderate' and reformed. Eight months into their regime, Taliban 2.0 is shaping to be not so different from the ultra-orthodox militia that ruled Afghanistan in the 90s.
The latest in Taliban's journey into the past was announced when it ruled that all Afghan women must cover their faces.
Cover your face, or...
The Taliban's Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice released a decree from the group's supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada saying that all women must cover their faces in public.
Any woman failing to do so will result in her father or closest male relative getting visited by the Taliban and eventually imprisoned or fired from government jobs if she did not cover her face outside the home.
Taliban's dress code for women
According to the Taliban, the ideal face covering was the all-encompassing blue burqa, which became a global symbol of the Taliban's previous hardline regime from 1996 until 2001.
"They should wear a chadori (head-to-toe burqa) as it is traditional and respectful," said a decree.
"Those women who are not too old or young must cover their face, except the eyes, as per sharia directives, in order to avoid provocation when meeting men who are not adult close male relatives," the decree said.
It added that if women had no important work outside it was "better they stay at home".
Most women in Afghanistan wear a headscarf for religious reasons, but many in urban areas such as Kabul do not cover their faces.?
No more women drivers
Just days ago, it was reported that the Taliban had stopped issuing driving licenses to women in Kabul and other provinces.
Before the Taliban takeover, women in Afghanistan could be seen driving in some of the major cities of the country including Kabul. However, the Taliban has now stopped distributing driving licenses to women, local media said.?
Undoing 20 years in eight months
The Taliban which took power in Afghanistan in August 2021, has slowly but steadily undone all the progress the country and especially Afghan women achieved in the two decades that they were away.
Ever since they took control of the country, the Taliban has banned women from workplaces and girls from schools.
While both the measures are said to be temporary, the Taliban has not made it clear when things will change.
In a recent decree, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan banned girls from attending school above grade sixth leading to worldwide condemnation. The leaders of the outfit have since said that the move was taken because of an apparent "shortage of teachers" and that the right of girls to study beyond grade sixth will be restored "shortly"?
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