By Rukhshana Media’s reporters
The courtyard of Mehri’s* home is tastefully decorated with colorful flowers. Off the courtyard, is the small room that serves as her beauty salon – operating strictly in secret.
Mehri is one of many female beauticians in a northern province** of Afghanistan who has continued her work away from the eyes of the Taliban after they prohibited beauty salons.
From the first days of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the group’s members began tearing down and painting over any images depicting women.
Then in June last year, the Taliban officially banned beauty salons. Tens of thousands of women were suddenly unemployed and many have been confined to their homes ever since. Statistics indicate that at least 60,000 people may have lost their jobs due to this ban.
Mehri recounts that in the first year of the Taliban’s return to power, her business was going as well as in the days before Kabul fell. But one day in June 2023, the Taliban knocked on her door.
“Looking through the window, I saw two men in white clothes standing outside. I realized they were the Vice and Virtue police, so I quickly put on my gown and went outside. I was terrified,” Mehri says.
The two men informed her that the beauty salon was not to open the next day.
“They said to me, ‘You should know well that your work is Satanic and un-Islamic, yet you still accept the sin for a few afghanis’.”
While the Taliban deem the work Satanic, for Mehri it’s the only means of putting food on the table for her four children.
The 36-year-old is a single parent and sole income earner after her husband took his life on the night the Taliban took control of their province in 2021.
Mehri said her husband worked for the former government’s National Directorate of Security and feared the Taliban’s retribution.
Mehri also fears the Taliban, but has few choices to provide for her young family. And besides, she loves how the beauty service she provides brings joy.
“Every time a woman visits my salon, I try to make her smile by enhancing her beauty. For me, this is more than just a job. It is a responsibility and a form of service,” Mehri says.
She says she listens to the women’s difficult stories, talks with them, and also tries to give them hope and encouragement.
“We women need to support each other. When one of us succeeds, it’s a victory for all of us. We must demonstrate that we can continue in any situation and bring beauty and hope into our lives,” she says.
In the traditional culture of the province where Mehri lives, she says it’s not easy to operate the business secretly. She only continues her work with extreme caution.
The Taliban’s decision to close women’s beauty salons in Afghanistan was issued with a video message from the Taliban’s spokesperson for the Ministry of the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue stating that one of the reasons was to prevent extravagance and the burden of cost on grooms, as well as to uphold Islamic Sharia values such as ensuring women are not wearing makeup when they pray.
Thirty-year-old Zeba* has similarly continued her beautician work in secret to help provide for her three children and add to her husband’s paltry income as a taxi driver.
“The Taliban don’t allow us to work freely. They say beautician is a sinful profession and they threaten us,” she says.
It wasn’t a safe profession under Taliban rule even before the official ban.
The Taliban visited Zeba’s salon in October 2022. They tore down the posters from the walls and took half of the salon’s equipment and beauty products with them.
And it’s not only female beauty salons that are being restricted. Some male barbers have been prohibited from shaving their clients’ beards or waxing facial hair such as shaping eyebrows.
For Salim*, the young barber had always enjoyed doing women’s makeup and styling their hair as much as for his male clients.
Before the Taliban, during a period of relative freedom in Afghanistan, his work had already caused him numerous problems in the deeply conservative culture that mocked his fascination with beautifying women.
Image:supplied
Now, with the Taliban’s closure of women’s salons, what Salim is doing is considered an unforgivable crime by the Taliban. If they catch him, he would inevitably be whipped, if not executed.
Salim said he discovered his passion for beautician at the age of 12. He enjoyed styling his sisters, his cousins, and his aunt’s daughters. But it was also his family who set up the first obstacles, criticizing him for spending so much time with women.
Others around him called him many derogatory nicknames.
But those challenges did not stop him, and nor will his fear of the Taliban.
He admits that he is constantly afraid, saying that although his clients are honest with him and no one has yet exposed him, the fear of being discovered by the Taliban never leaves him.
He has already been forced to relocated once in 2022 after residents of his area informed the Taliban that he was styling women’s hair.
But for him, being a beautician is not just a job. He believes he was born to be a makeup artist and he considers himself dedicated to this art.
He says that even if he had only one day left to live, he would work as a beautician.
Note* : The names are changed due to security reasons.
Note**: Locations are not being named for security reasons.
