Under the new rules, women must cover their faces, ideally with the traditional burqa, according to a statement from the Directorate-General for Administrative Affairs.
If a woman does not follow the rules, her “male guardian” is visited and advised, and eventually jailed and convicted. Women who work in government offices and do not comply with the new decree will be fired.
The Taliban has been criticized for restricting women’s rights and freedoms in various areas of public life.
“The Taliban can’t erase us, they can’t. This isn’t like the 1990s or before — they have to accept [women]† They have no other choice,” former Afghan politician and women’s rights activist Zarifa Ghafari told CNN last month.
In December, the Taliban banned women from long distance road trips only in Afghanistan, requiring a male relative to accompany them for any distance exceeding 45 miles. The new rules also called on drivers not to allow women without a veil to sit in their cars.
These are intended to prevent women from being harmed or “disrupted,” said Mohammad Sadiq Hakif Mahajer, spokesman for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
In November, the Taliban published guidelines for broadcasters that banned all dramas, soap operas and entertainment programs featuring women. From now on, female news presenters must also wear a headscarf on screen. These were the first restrictions of their kind imposed on the country’s media network.
And despite early promises by the Taliban that women would retain their right to education, high schools for girls were closed in March on the morning they were due to open.
In January, UN Secretary-General António Guterres appealed to the Taliban leadership to recognize and protect the basic human rights of women and girls. “No country can prosper while denying the rights of half of its population,” he said.
