The Taliban’s notorious religious police have detained scores of Afghan women and girls in recent weeks for allegedly violating the extremist group’s Islamic dress code.
Among them was Zahra’s younger sister, who was detained in the capital, Kabul, in early January for allegedly failing to cover herself from head to toe in public.
“My sister was humiliated and tortured while in Taliban custody,” Zahra, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. “They told her that she was an infidel because she wore tight clothes.”
Zahra said her family was forced to pay Taliban officials nearly $12,000 in bribes to secure her release.
The Taliban’s crackdown on women who allegedly violate the hard-line Islamist group’s dress code is the latest blow to Afghan women. Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban has severely curtailed women's right to work and study, and imposed restrictions on their appearances and freedom of movement.
In May 2022, the Taliban ordered all women to wear the all-encompassing burqa or an Islamic abaya robe and niqab that covers the hair, body, and most of the face in public. The latter is common in the Arab Gulf states.
Afghan women, especially those in urban areas, consider the burqa and niqab to be alien to Afghan culture. Before the Taliban’s return to power, many women wore loose head scarves that only concealed their hair.
The Taliban’s enforcement of the dress code was sporadic and uneven across the country. But activists say that since the turn of the year, the group has intensified the enforcement of the law.
'Going Through Agony'
Masuda Kohistani, a women's rights activist in Kabul, said the Taliban has even targeted women and girls wearing the hijab, a headscarf that covers the hair and neck, but leaves the face visible.
Kohistani said she witnessed members of the Taliban’s religious police detaining a 20-year-old woman in the suburb of Khairkhana in northern Kabul who was wearing a hijab.
“The shopkeepers attempted to argue with the Taliban by pointing out that she was observing the hijab, but the militants beat them up,” Kohistani told Radio Azadi. “Her family is going through agony. They don't know what to do as they struggle to find her.”
A woman wearing a niqab enters a beauty salon in Kabul.
The Taliban’s religious police is overseen by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which is responsible for enforcing the Taliban's morality laws, including its strict dress code and gender segregation in society.
A young woman, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, told Radio Azadi that the Taliban on January 3 detained several women in Dasht-e Barchi, a neighborhood in Kabul where many are members of the Shi’ite Hazara minority. She said she escaped arrest after an older man told her to hide.
“He told me to run towards my house because the Taliban had just arrested several women in the neighborhood,” she said.
Mina Rafiq, a women’s rights activist in Kabul, said the Taliban’s crackdown began in Kabul but has expanded to other parts of the country, including the central province of Daikundi, the western province of Herat, and the northern provinces of Balkh, Kunduz, and Takhar.
“Now, we are not even allowed to choose the clothes we wear,” she told Radio Azadi. “How will they ever allow us to get an education or speak freely?”
It is unclear exactly how many women have been detained in recent weeks.
'Demeaning And Dangerous'
The United Nations and global rights watchdogs have condemned the Taliban’s latest clampdown on women.
“The Taliban's dress-code crackdown and arbitrary arrests is a further violation of women's freedom of movement and expression in Afghanistan,” Amnesty International said on January 14. “The crackdown must immediately be ceased, and those detained released.”
An Afghan burqa-clad woman checks a dress at a shop in Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan Province.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said on January 11 that it was looking into claims of mistreatment of women and extortion in exchange for their release.
“Enforcement measures involving physical violence are especially demeaning and dangerous for Afghan women and girls,” said Roza Otunbayeva, UN special envoy and head of the mission.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief Taliban spokesman, dismissed UNAMA’s concerns.
“Afghan women wear the hijab on their own,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Neither have they been forced to do so, nor has the ministry of vice and virtue mistreated them.”
Afghan activists said the crackdown is another major blow to women, who have been effectively erased from public life.
“The situation for women in Afghanistan is becoming worse every day," said Ruqiya Saee, a women's rights activist in Kabul.