A headscarf is not enough: In Afghanistan, the Taliban is punishing cab drivers for transporting women not covered up with burqas. As a result, fewer and fewer women are traveling in cities.
Getting a taxi with a burqa on in the Afghan capital KabulImage: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
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Fereydun, a motorized rickshaw driver from Herat in western Afghanistan, doesn't transport women anymore. If he were to carry women who weren't wearing a full-body covering, he would be beaten up by the Taliban and have his rickshaw confiscated, Fereydun told DW.
He has already had to witness women being humiliated. The Taliban have stopped him several times and pulled women not wearing burqas out of the vehicle to curse and scream at them. Fereydun said he has also been punished.
Many refuse to wear burqas and still walk the streets with their faces uncovered. Last year, Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada ordered women to hide their faces completely in public "as this is traditional and respectful," according to the decree issued in May 2022.
When the Taliban came to power in August 2021, they pledged to respect women's rights. Since then, women have been ousted from most professions and barred from attending universities or higher education institutions.
Most recently, beauty salons were banned. For women who still dare to show their faces, the pressure is mounting.
Taliban shutter Afghanistan's hair and beauty salons
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Eyewitnesses in Afghanistan report that the Taliban Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice have stationed morality police all over big cities.
Among other things, the ministry has decreed that drivers of taxis, rickshaws, and other passenger vehicles can no longer transport women not wearing a hijab inside cities.
"When women travel, they must be accompanied by a man," Akif Mohajer, a representative of the Ministry of Vice and Virtue, told the media.
"When they travel inside the city, no man is allowed to sit next to them and they must wear a full hijab. It doesn't matter if they wear a chador or not — their hijab must be fully Islamic."
What exactly a "full Islamic hijab" constitutes does not seem to be clearly defined. Dina, a woman from Herat, said that she had been removed from rickshaws several times and insulted for wearing a long coat and headscarf rather than a full body covering.
Mirza, a cab driver from Kabul, also confirmed this in an interview with DW. The Taliban had told him several times that women without veils or burqas were not allowed to ride in taxis, otherwise he would be punished and his cab confiscated.
Afghan women still demonstrate for their rightsImage: AFP/Getty Images
Squeezing women from public space
The primary goal of these measures is to push women out of the public eye, according to Maryam Marof Arwin, founder of a welfare organization for women and children in Afghanistan.
"With the recent restrictions, the Taliban have shown that they are sticking to the policies they implemented in their first period in power, except that now they are systematically and specifically eliminating women from society," she said.
During the Taliban's first stint in power between 1996 to 2001, they were known for their degrading treatment of women. Back then, women were forced to wear the burqa in public, were not allowed to leave the house without a male escort, and were barred from seeing male doctors, resulting in many diseases going untreated. Experts warn that the Taliban are now trying to turn back time without thinking about the consequences.
Back in February, the Taliban had announced that female medical students would not be allowed to sit their final exams. They had already banned women from attending universities in December 2022.
In every conversation, women in Afghanistan stress that the world should not stand idly by. They need the support and solidarity of the world community. Dina from Herat does, too.
University ban: Afghanistan's disenfranchised women
Since seizing power in mid-2021, the Taliban have increasingly restricted the rights of Afghan women and girls. Now, the hardline Islamists are denying women access to higher education, sparking international outrage.
Image: AFP
Leaving for good?
A woman in a burqa leaves a university in Kandahar province. She won't be allowed to return. In a government statement Tuesday, the hardline Islamist Taliban instructed all universities in Afghanistan, private and public, to ban women from attending. As of now, all female students are barred from universities.
Image: AFP
Women are excluded
Taliban control the entrance to a university in Kabul the day after the university ban was imposed. Female students are told they cannot go in. The ban is set to remain in place indefinitely. There have, however, already been some signs of protest at the universities: Male students walked out of an exam, and some male teachers went on strike.
Image: WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images
Higher education for men only
Some restrictions had already been put in place before now. After the Taliban took power in August 2021, universities had to separate entrances and classrooms by gender. Women could only be taught by other women or by old men. This picture shows how screens separated an area for female students at Kandahar University.
Image: AFP/Getty Images
The last of their kind
These female students at Benawa University in Kandahar were still able to graduate in March with degrees in engineering and computer science. The renewed restriction of women's rights in Afghanistan has come in for heavy international criticism. Human Rights Watch called the university ban a "shameful decision," while the UN said it violated women's human rights.
Image: JAVED TANVEER/AFP
'Devastating impact on the country's future'
Thousands of girls and women took university entrance exams as recently as October —as here, at Kabul University. Many wanted to study medicine or become teachers. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the university ban "not only violates the equal rights of women and girls, but will have a devastating impact on the country's future."
Image: WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images
No educational opportunities for girls
The ban on university attendance is yet another restriction on educational opportunities for women and girls. For over a year now, teenage girls have only been able to attend secondary school up to seventh grade in most parts of the country. These girls walking to school in eastern Afghanistan are lucky: Some of the provinces away from the Taliban's central powerbases are ignoring the ban.
Image: AFP
Land of invisible women
Girls and women are now excluded from most aspects of Afghan public life. They haven't been allowed to visit gyms or parks in Kabul for months. Even this amusement park in the capital is off-limits to female visitors. The Taliban justify the ban by saying regulations on the separation of the sexes were not being observed, and women were not wearing the headscarf as required by the Taliban.
Image: WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images
Dystopian reality
Women gather saffron flowers in Herat province. This is work they are allowed to do, unlike most other professions. Since coming to power, the Taliban have enacted a great many regulations that hugely restrict the lives of women and girls. For example, they are forbidden from traveling without a male companion and must wear the hijab or burqa outside their home at all times.
Image: MOHSEN KARIMI/AFP
'A blot of shame on the world'
Many Afghan women refuse to accept the abolition of their rights. These women were demonstrating in Kabul in November. A placard, in English, reads "Horrific Condition of Afghan Women Is A Blot of Shame to the World Conscience." Anyone who dares to protest requires a great deal of courage. Demonstrators risk beatings and imprisonment, and women's rights activists are persecuted in Afghanistan.
