Updated on December 26th, 2021, 7:27 pm
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- The radical Islamic Taliban in Afghanistan continue to restrict women’s rights.
- Now women should only be allowed to travel long distances if they are accompanied by a close male relative.
- In addition, the women must be veiled and are not allowed to listen to music in the car.
The radical Islamic Taliban in Afghanistan continue to restrict women’s rights: According to a new guideline, women should only be allowed to travel longer if they are accompanied by a close male relative. All vehicle owners are also requested to only transport women wearing an Islamic hijab. Human rights activists condemned the restrictions.
“Women who travel more than 72 kilometers should not be taken unless they are accompanied by a close family member,” a spokesman for the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice said Sunday. The ministry’s new directive also urges people to stop listening to music in their vehicles.
The new guidelines were published in the online networks. The Taliban had already massively curtailed women’s rights in the past few weeks. The Afghan television stations were asked not to show any more dramas and soap operas with actresses. The Virtue Ministry had also asked television journalists to wear hijabs when they appear.
Human Rights Watch strongly condemns the restrictions
In Europe, the hijab is only understood to mean the Islamic headscarf, but it can also mean the additional covering of the face or the rest of the body. The Taliban have so far left open how they define hijab. Most Afghan women wear headscarves.
The human rights organization Human Rights Watch denounced the recent restrictions imposed by the Taliban as a blatant interference with women’s rights. The new travel policy makes women even more “prisoners”, said HRW director Heather Barr, who is responsible for women’s rights, of the AFP news agency. The measure prevents “women from being able to move freely or to go to another city, that they can do business or flee if they experience violence at home,” criticized Barr.
The Taliban had regained power in Afghanistan in mid-August. The Islamists took office with the promise that their new rule would be milder than that of the 1990s. However, reports of women prevented from returning to work and girls unable to go to school cast strong doubts on these assurances.
The Taliban had massively oppressed women in the 1990s
Higher Education Minister Abdul Baki Hakkani, known as an Islamist hardliner, said on Sunday that women’s access to education is currently under discussion. “The Islamic Emirate is not against the education of women, but it is against common education,” he said. “We are working on an Islamic environment for women to study in,” he added. But this could “take a while”. He did not provide any information on when girls and women can return to school or university.
During their rule in the 1990s, the Taliban had massively oppressed women. Girls were not allowed to go to school, women were only allowed to wear a burqa and leave the house with a male companion.
International donor countries have emphasized several times that respect for women’s rights is a prerequisite for restoring international aid to Afghanistan. According to the United Nations, the Central Asian country is facing an “avalanche of hunger” this winter. 22 million citizens are threatened by food insecurity. (AFP / fra)
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