Afghanistan’s Taliban regime has arrested dozens of women and girls in Kabul for violating their dress code. According to local sources, these women were arrested in the past three days in western Kabul.
On Monday, January 1, alone, at least 15 young girls were arrested by Taliban forces from an area near Barchi City Center, a major shopping mall in the neighborhood. The whereabouts and fate of these women remain unknown.
A spokesperson from the Taliban’s Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice has confirmed the girls’ arrests, attributing the detentions to their alleged failure to adhere to the regime’s proper Islamic hijab standards. This marks the first confirmation of a crackdown on women who do not comply with the dress code imposed by the regime in Kabul since their return to power in 2021.
The Taliban spokesperson told the Associated Press that they have received complaints about the inadequate hijab of women in Kabul and other provinces over the last two years. Additionally, he stated that they have advised women and girls to adhere to the dress code, warning of potential arrests for non-compliance. “These are the few limited women who spread bad hijab in Islamic society,” he said. “They violated Islamic values and rituals, and encouraged society and other respected sisters to go for bad hijab.”
In an audio message obtained by KabulNow, a Taliban member leaves a voice message to someone who appears to be an administrator of an education center, warning him of a wave of arrest coming on grounds of violating dress codes. He says that the group’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue has ordered the immediate detention of anyone not wearing a hijab according to their standards. They are to be held in custody for at least three days, he says. The Taliban member warns that if, after this period, the father or brother of the detained girls does not come and guarantee their wearing of the hijab, the girls will be sent to Pul-e-Charkhi prison.
He defines in his message the proper Hijab as a piece of cloth, cover, dress, or overcoat that stretches at least until below a woman’s knee.
Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, in response to the recent arrest of women by the Taliban in Kabul, expressed his concern over the situation. He emphasized that these actions signify further restrictions on women’s freedom of expression and undermine their rights. Bennett called on the Taliban to release the detained women immediately and unconditionally.
This latest development adds to the mounting challenges faced by women and girls in Afghanistan under the Taliban, who are already facing bans on education, employment, and access to public spaces. The restrictions imposed on women and girls in Afghanistan are the harshest that the Taliban have announced since they came to power.
These measures suggest, observers believe, the increasing dominance of the group’s hardline leader, Hibatullah Akhondzada, who appears to be behind the extended ban on women and girls attending secondary school and universities.
In May 2022, the Taliban announced that women and girls should remain indoors, and if they choose to go out, they must wear loose clothing covering their entire bodies, revealing only their eyes, and be chaperoned by a male guardian. The similar restrictions the regime imposed during their previous rule from 1996 to 2001.
The arrests come less than a week after the UN Security Council called for a special envoy to engage with the Taliban, especially on gender and human rights. But the Taliban criticized the idea, arguing that historically appointments of special envoys, both in Afghanistan and globally, haven’t resolved conflicts but rather exacerbated situations by imposing external solutions.
