The Taliban government announced on Tuesday July 4 that it has ordered the closure of beauty salons within a month in Afghanistan, a new measure aimed at keeping women ever further away from public life.

Mohammad Sadeq Akif Muhajir, the spokesperson for the ministry for the prevention of vice and the promotion of virtue, confirmed to Agence France-Presse (AFP) the decision, mentioned for a few days on social networks, but did not did not justify it. “Once [beauty salons] have been closed, we will let the media know why,” he said.

They were given a month to close, so they could sell off their stock without experiencing any losses, he explained. According to a written copy of the decree seen by AFP, the decision “is based on a verbal instruction from the Supreme Leader” of Afghanistan, Hibatullah Akhundzada.

Since their return to power in August 2021, the Taliban have excluded women from most secondary schools, universities and public administrations. They also very broadly prohibited them from working with the UN and international NGOs. They no longer have the right to enter parks, gardens, sports halls and public baths, to travel without being accompanied by a male relative and must cover themselves fully when they leave their homes.

Situation of women in Afghanistan ‘one of the worst in the world’

Beauty salons had proliferated in Kabul and in major Afghan cities during the twenty-year occupation by US and NATO forces, before the Taliban returned to power. They were considered safe places for women to meet in the absence of men, and had also enabled many women to set up their own businesses.

In a report presented to the UN Human Rights Council last week, Richard Bennett, special rapporteur for Afghanistan, called the situation of women and girls in the country “one of the worst in the world “. “Serious, systematic and institutionalized discrimination against women and girls is at the heart of Taliban ideology and power,” Bennett said.

Hibatullah Akhundzada claimed in late June that women living in the country had been rescued from “oppression” by the Taliban government and their status as “free and dignified human beings” had been restored. The supreme leader, whose public appearances are very rare and who manages the country by decree from Kandahar (southern Afghanistan), cradle of the Taliban, explained that everything was done to guarantee women “a comfortable and prosperous life in accordance Sharia, Islamic law.