KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The Taliban Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (MPVPV) has reportedly hired female spies to monitor other women and enforce the severe restrictions imposed on them.
As reported by The Telegraph, despite the Taliban’s ban on women’s work, women continue to work in this ministry, and more have recently been hired to monitor other women, including their activities on social media.
A Taliban official from the ministry, quoted in the report, confirmed the information, saying that “they are needed to handle other women.”
According to the Taliban official, the regime has hired women to monitor other women on social media platforms, including Instagram, and report instances where women post pictures with uncovered faces.
“You know how Instagram works … they can hide their pages so no one can see them, but we have women who are our eyes,” said the Taliban official.
He added that some women are coerced into this role, while others are paid for their work, which also includes accompanying male Taliban members on street patrols.
“Some women were arrested and released only on the condition that they inform the ministry of any illegal activity they observe from the women they follow,” the Taliban official told the news agency.
According to the report, when asked whether female Taliban members speaking to men violate their rules, the official responded, “It is acceptable when women assist us in combating prostitution.”
Over the past three years of Taliban rule, Afghanistan has become one of the worst countries in the world for women and girls. The regime in power has severely cracked down on them, restricting their movements and denying them access to education, employment, social mobility, and other basic freedoms.
UN experts, rights groups, and activists all say that the Taliban’s oppression of women and girls amounts to a system of apartheid, designed to deliberately subjugate them based solely on their gender.
Last week, the Taliban announced a new set of restrictions under the so-called “Vice and Virtue” law, approved by its supreme leader, which further curtails the rights and freedoms of both men and women.
The new law requires women to fully veil their bodies in public and considers their voices instruments of vice, forbidding them from reading or singing aloud, not only in public but even within their homes.
The 35-article law also prohibits women from looking directly at men who are not related by blood or marriage and from using city taxis without being accompanied by a close male relative.
According to the law, individuals who defy the new rules will be arrested and imprisoned.
