By Zahra Joya and Hania Forotan
The Taliban have issued an order targeting underground beauty salons operating in secret across Afghanistan, warning the women running them that they have to stop or face arrest.
Officially, all beauty salons were closed by the Taliban in August 2023, shuttering 12,000 businesses with the loss of more than 50,000 female beautician jobs. Yet clandestine salons have continued to operate within communities across the country.
Now, the Taliban have said that they intend to root out and eliminate these underground businesses, issuing orders to community leaders and elders across the country that they must identify clandestine beauty salons and report those running them to the “vice and virtue” police.
Frestha, a 38-year-old mother of three young children, said she had been operating her beauty salon business in secret since they were banned in 2023 because she had no choice but to work and no other way of earning money.
“When the Taliban closed our salons, I was the only breadwinner in my family; my husband was sick, and I had three children whose expenses I had to cover,” she said.
“But also I kept working because I feel so good when I could bring beauty back to a woman. When a woman looked at herself in the mirror and smiled, her happiness became my happiness.
“Now, I don’t think I can keep going because the risk is too high [but] I don’t know any other work. Our situation is very bad, but in this world there is no one to hear our voice or support us,” she added.
Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, women have been banned from most forms of paid employment and girls prevented from attending secondary school or university.
Human rights groups say the Taliban operate a de facto system of gender apartheid, preventing women from engaging in any kind of public life.
As well as shutting beauty salons, gyms and other communal spaces, women are also prevented from walking in public parks, travelling without a male chaperone, must cover themselves completely when leaving the house and are not allowed to be heard speaking in public.
Published in Partnership with The Guardian.
