Female Doctors Threatened with Prison by the Taliban

Semin (a pseudonym), one of the doctors in Herat province, told Zan TV that on Wednesday (January 29), the agents from the Department for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice threatened to imprison her. "Around 9 AM today, the agents came and said that women should not be with men, should wear appropriate and Islamic clothing, and they told me to align myself with Sharia law, wear a long hijab. But in the afternoon, they came again for supervision and told me that if I hadn’t changed my attire, they would imprison me if they saw me in this state again."

Najla Forough, a health worker and a newly engaged woman working in the laboratory section of a medical clinic, complains about the inhumane behavior of the Taliban. She says, "They entered my office without permission, without even knocking. I was talking on the phone with my fiancé when one of the agents said, 'Why are you talking to your boyfriend? You are not reformed.' He took my mobile phone, went into the gallery, looked at every picture, and asked me who the people in the pictures were."

On the other hand, women's rights and human rights activists have called the Taliban’s actions misogynistic and say that the Taliban are constantly attempting to narrow the space for women and girls' activities.

Fawzia Shaheer, a women's rights activist, says: "The Taliban are gradually erasing women from society. Women’s rights have been trampled under the feet of the Taliban. Their way of governing clearly shows that they are misogynistic."

Female doctors and healthcare workers are complaining about the inhumane behavior of the Taliban, which, since taking power in Afghanistan in 2021, have imposed numerous decrees that limit women's rights, including bans on employment, education, and work for women and girls.