In an audio tape received by Rukhshana Media, the Taliban morality police in northern Balkh province addresses the shopkeepers not to sell to women who don’t observe the Taliban’s prescribed hijab on Monday, October 30.
The order was announced through the loudspeaker of a local mosque in Kart-e-Solh of Mazar-e-Sharif city.
“For all the shopkeepers, including tailors and those who hear our voice, this is our message that as Muslims,” the Taliban morality police says in the audio tape. “We should not deal with those women who do not observe a complete Islamic hijab.”
In the audio tape, it is also stated that women do not have the right to leave their houses without wearing the all-covering hijab.
According to the order of the Taliban, if a woman does not wear the all-covering mandatory hijab prescribed by them, her male member of the family would be interrogated and introduced to the Taliban morality police.
The Taliban have said earlier that burqa and Arabic full veils, both of which cover from head-to-toe, are their preferred hijab for women.A 48-year-old woman in Mazar-e-Sharif, who talked anonymously, tell Rukhshana Media that she was shocked when she heard the Taliban’s order through the loudspeaker of the mosque.
She adds that the message from the mosque reminded her of bitter memories of the 1990s in her mind. “In the 1990s, the same type of strictness was imposed,” she says. “When a woman went out without a veil, she was whipped off in front of all the people.”
“Women were not allowed to wear makeup,” she adds. “If women wore sandals or colored their nails, they were flogged in public, and women without a male chaperone were not allowed to leave their houses.”
Another 29-year-old woman, who also preferred not to be named, says that although she does not remember the Taliban rule in the 1990s, she is now tired of living under the Taliban’s strict rules.
“Life has been very difficult in the past year,” she adds. “Every day, there is a new rule to impose restrictions on Afghan women as if women are not human beings.”
The Taliban has imposed many restrictions on women’s lives since they took over Afghanistan on August 15 last year.