A senior Taliban official says that women’s rights are the rights given to them by the Islamic Emirate – the Taliban’s term for Afghanistan under their rule.
Farqir Mohammad Mohammadi, the Taliban’s de facto deputy minister for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, made the remarks in a gathering on Tuesday in Laghman province.
In his speech at the gathering, he said it’s forbidden and illegal for women and girls to do hard work outside the home, emphasising that the Taliban authorities know what are the rights of women.
Mr Mohammadi said that dowries or paying for brides is prohibited and that taking payment from a groom’s family is against Islamic standards.
He encouraged fathers and brothers to ask their daughters and sisters “if she likes the person she is going to marry.”
Mr Mohammadi also said that the Taliban supreme leader Mullah Hebatullah has ordered that women should be doing the work of the house inside and not everyday work outside the house, including bringing firewood from the mountains.
The Taliban has been facing increasing calls from the international community and Afghans to respect girls and women’s rights as protests continue inside the country against the Taliban restrictions.
Afghan girls and women are being forced to abide by extreme restrictions on their freedom and autonomy, including bans on getting an education above grade 6, working in most professions including local and international NGOs, eating in garden restaurants, entering some amusement and national parks, wearing clothes that reveal their face, working in offices alongside men, and travelling without a male chaperone.
