As a 35-year-old university lecturer, Nazifa regularly took local minivans, transportation facilities popular in the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, for daily trips from home to university and returning. As a native population of the city, he is very familiar with highways, sightseeing, and the back alley, and rarely feel uncomfortable traveling alone.
It was until last week, when the minivan that Nazifa, who asked his name was changed, traveling was stopped by a Taliban guard.
I was on his way home with another female colleague when a Taliban stopped our vehicle and asked where our Mahram was [male gambling]. When we told him that we didn’t have it, he was very angry, “he told Al Jazeera.
He made the driver drop us back to where we took, instructed him not to bring female passengers without Mahram. We had to walk for half an hour at the checkpoint before we could find another taxi that could take us home,” he said.I feel very desperate and sad that day,” said Nazifa. “Since then I feel very scared when traveling to work. I am very worried they will stop me again, and punish me. It’s very embarrassing to be considered worthless in the homeland myself,” he said, broke down.Since taking over Afghanistan last year, Taliban rulers have reintroduced Draconian restrictions on freedom and movement, especially directed at women, who reminded their last regime in the 1990s.
The increasing, over the past few weeks, Taliban leaders, especially from the Ministry of Finance and the prevention of representatives, has announced many new restrictions, even as international criticism and pressure against them.
In December, the Ministry, who replaced the Afghan female ministry, imposed restrictions on women from traveling further than 72km (45 miles) without relatives of the close man. This limitation was expanded further last week to include trips abroad, and some solo women’s travelers reportedly stopped from flight assessment. A similar ban was also introduced in several health care centers throughout the country, prohibiting women to access health services without mahram.
However, while there were no special limitations in women traveling in the city, the Taliban reportedly instructed local taxi drivers in Afghan cities towards taking female passengers who were not accompanied or if they were not wearing the right headscarf or headscarf, as defined by the Taliban. . They often stopped women’s travelers alone and sentenced taxi drivers who swung it.
Sadeq Akif Muhajir, a spokesman for the Taliban Ministry, defended restrictions on local media, said they were “not limitations for women, it was for their honor protection”.
However, many Afghan women disagree. “It’s impossible for me to have Mahram; my husband can’t go to work with me every day,” said Nazifa.
He questioned whether the Taliban intention was to prevent women from going to work “considering the restrictions they continued to impose, I was afraid that they would not let the woman go to work without mahram, because it had an impossible mahram”, he said.
A number of other decisions issued in the past few weeks, directed to women, have ordered headscarves for women at work, gender separation in public parks, and continued closure of women’s secondary schools, who have triggered protests from Afghan women and argues strong international criticism.
The Taliban briefly reopened the school for girls on March 23, after months without continuous pressure. However, the celebration was short-lived, because they were immediately closed again without explanation.
We sat in class when two Taliban members entered, and asked us, ‘With the permission who you entered school?’ They carry weapons and ask us to leave,” Sara was 15 years old told, disappointing his voice.
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