Taliban Detain More Than 50 Women in Kabul over Improper Hijab in the Past Three Months

Photo: AFP

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), in its latest quarterly report, says that the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has expanded the enforcement of its restrictive decrees to an unprecedented level in recent months, severely affecting the daily lives of Afghan women and girls.

According to the report, released on Tuesday (28 October), agents from the ministry have launched campaigns in Kabul and Herat to compel women to observe the “mandatory hijab,” using threats, arbitrary arrests, and coercion to impose the rule.

UNAMA reports that between 16 and 19 July, more than 60 women and girls were arrested in Kabul on charges of “violating the hijab decree.” They were released only after their male relatives signed written guarantees.

In Herat, between 15 and 19 September, Taliban vice and virtue officers set up checkpoints in the Jebrael area to inspect women’s hijab. A week later, they detained a group of women for not wearing the chador and released them only after their relatives brought them one.

Alongside the enforcement of compulsory hijab, the requirement for women to be accompanied by a male guardian (mahram) has become a major barrier to their access to social services and freedom of movement.

UNAMA reported that Taliban forces in Farah, Uruzgan, and Kandahar provinces have prevented women from shopping in markets without a mahram. In one case in Kandahar, a bus driver and a travel agency employee refused to sell tickets to two women travelling without a male guardian, saying they had been ordered by the vice and virtue department not to provide transport services to women travelling alone.

Since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, compulsory hijab and the mahram requirement have become key tools of control over women and girls in Afghanistan. The policy of enforcing a male escort, based on the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Sharia, has effectively excluded unmarried, widowed, and unaccompanied women from movement and public life.