KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The local Taliban authorities in northern Balkh Province have imposed a complete ban on women visiting parks across the province, where they were previously allowed to visit on designated days.
In a letter, a copy of which obtained by KabulNow, the Taliban’s Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Department in Balkh has instructed the morality police to prevent women from entering parks in the capital city and districts.
Similarly, last Sunday, the head of the department, Noor Mohammad Haqqani, verbally instructed the regime’s security agents to prevent women from entering parks from now on.
According to the Taliban letter, the ban is justified by concerns over the mixing of women and men in the parks. However, local sources reported that women and girls in the province had been visiting parks on separate days and that the regime had divided parks into separate sections for women and men, which contradicts the Taliban’s claims.
The Taliban had imposed similar bans on women visiting parks in other provinces across the country.
Last year, the Taliban banned women and girls from visiting Band-e-Amir National Park in central Bamyan province, accusing them of not adhering to the regime’s mandated hijab.
During their first rule in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban confined women to their homes. When the group regained power in August 2021, it imposed similar restrictions, effectively excluding women from public life.
In Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, women and girls are not allowed to attend school beyond sixth grade, go to university, work, visit gyms, parks, public baths, and travel without a male guardian, among other restrictions.
Despite substantial pressure from human rights organizations, aid providers, and Islamic countries over the past three years to lift these bans, the Taliban has continued to impose additional and harsher restrictions on women’s rights.
