Zohal Azad
Tina always wanted to be a beautician. Growing up in Afghanistan, she used to help her older sister at her hairdressing salon, learning how to cut, style and dye hair.
Back then, it was a popular way for young women to make a living, but today, it has become all but impossible. Tina is one of the few beauticians still managing to ply her trade in Afghanistan after the Taliban banned the practice, along with most forms of female employment. To do so, she must operate in secret, accepting business only from trusted clients and seeing them one at a time to avoid raising suspicion.
“I love being a beautician,” she says. “I really can’t tell you how much I love this work. When I was seven and my sister had a salon, I couldn’t wait to get there every day and start learning.”
The 22-year-old used to have her own salon, a happy, bustling place where women came as much to gossip and catch up as to have their hair and make-up done.
For a while, the Taliban allowed salons to continue operating, though Tina says they were already putting pressure on female business owners.
“They would come and cause trouble on various pretexts,” she says. “One day it was not having a licence; another day it was not observing the hijab. We worked very carefully to try to make sure I didn’t lose my livelihood.”
Eventually, what Tina had long feared came to pass when in July 2023, the Taliban announced a ban on women’s beauty salons in Afghanistan because they offered services forbidden by Islam and caused economic hardship for the families of grooms during wedding festivities. Owners were given until August that year to cease operating. According to UN Women, the ban left around 60,000 women out of work across Afghanistan.
For Tina, giving up entirely wasn’t an option. Apart from anything else, she needed to earn money to eat. So she went underground, initially moving the business into her home, although she knew that was dangerous. She was fined twice for working from home, totaling around 30,000 afghanis (350 pounds), after the Taliban learned what she was doing from clients.
For a while, she stopped taking appointments. “Clients would call, but I was too frightened to accept them,” she says. “I thought that if the Taliban found out, I could get into trouble. If I was caught, I would be fined, and they might detain me too, or something might happen to my family. I couldn’t work for almost two months.”
Today, she works out of a room that she rents for 5,000 afghanis a month. Finding it wasn’t easy because landlords are afraid to rent their properties to beauticians, but she has managed to rent somewhere out of the way and discrete.
It takes Tina around 20 minutes to walk there from home and she spends the short journey in fear, looking around for any signs of Taliban forces. Clients arrive one at a time, by prior arrangement, and her heart races whenever she hears a knock at the door, unsure whether it’s her next customer or the Taliban.
Her mother Rukhsar says she worries about her daughter, especially when she hears about young women being detained for working.
“When Tina leaves the house, I am afraid that, God forbid, the Taliban might stop her, or someone might realise she is working. A thousand other thoughts go through my mind. I can’t settle,” she says.
Tina says Taliban forces have repeatedly warned her about continuing to work. A male family member was even summoned to the provincial Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice and only released after local elders provided guarantees that she will discontinue her work.
Before the ban, Tina says she earned between 3,000 and 4,000 afghanis a day. The money covered a substantial share of her family of five’s living expenses. Now, she can’t earn as much – she has to take greater care with every client, from the timing of their arrival and departure to where she works, and even the route she takes to get there.
“I can’t advertise or take on new clients. I can’t accept more than five clients at the house either, to avoid attracting attention. When I go to a client’s home, I take back roads and long detours to avoid running into the Taliban. Working has become very difficult.”
Despite these restrictions, Tina still speaks of a future in which she can work freely — without having to hide.
“I don’t want to be out of work, and I can’t afford to be. My brothers are all unemployed, and my earnings cover all our household expenses,” she says. “I don’t know how long things will stay this way, but I hope that one day we can all work without fear and freely show who we are.”
Note: Names in this report are pseudonyms.
