By: Elyas Ahmady
Taliban’s restrictions in southern Ghazni city have forced most women to stay in house because they can’t leave without a male family member escorting them, residents said.
Taliban disembark women, who leave home alone, at checkpoints, and instruct them to return to their homes, witnesses said. Since the Taliban’s return to power, far fewer women commute in the streets, and they have nearly disappeared from the city.
Fewer women who leave their houses for necessary works have to wear burqa. It means they can no longer wear colorful headscarves they used to wear before the Taliban.
Somaiya Amini, a Ghazni city resident, said taxi drivers do not give women ride if they are alone.
“We have to ask male (family members) to buy something for us and accept what they chose,” she said. “We are like prisoners.”
Taliban’s Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice issued an instruction after took power, asking taxi drivers not to give ride to women without proper hijab, and women should have a male escort if the trip distance is more than 40 miles.
Zahra, another female resident of Ghazni, said she could make money and go to the city to sell her embroideries to the stores before the Taliban, but she cannot do it anymore. Now she sends male family members to buy what she needs.
“Men can’t buy what we can buy,” she complained.
The decrease in women’s presence in the city have negatively affected local businesses which sell women clothing and accessories, shopkeepers said.
Seventy percent of the shops in Bazaazi market in Ghazni city sell women clothing and accessories. Most of the shops were empty with no customer in one recent morning recent.
Momin Khan, a teenage boy who works in a cosmetics shop, complained that “there is no sale, the business is down.”
Shafiq, 21, who is owns a shop in the market, said he can’t pay the store’s rent anymore. “I have sold nothing in two weeks,” he said.
Zabihullah, another shop owner, said he sold 10-15 dresses every day before the Taliban’s takeover, but he hasn’t sold anything in two weeks.
Taxi drivers also complain that their income has dropped significantly because they have lost most women customers.
Abdul Rahman, 30, is a taxi driver, said most of his income came from women passengers, because men usually walk. With fewer women outside, he has lost most of his income.
Mohammad Omar, another driver, said he gives ride to far fewer female passengers these days.
In December, Taliban governor for Ghazni, Mohammad Ishaq Akhundzada, asked directorate of information and culture to produce programs on local media to encourage women to stay home.
But the Taliban reject imposing restrictions on women’s commute in Ghazni city. Taliban spokesman for Ghazni governor Hafiz Umar said they have only told local clerics in encourage people to live within Sharia Law.
In the previous Taliban government in the 1990s, women could not get out of their homes without a male companion or Mahram.
