Afghan girls protest towards Taliban’s magnificence parlour ban
3 min read
By Agence France-Presse: Since seizing energy in August 2021, the Taliban authorities has barred women and girls from excessive colleges and universities, banned them from parks, funfairs and gymnasiums, and ordered them to cowl up in public.
The order issued final month forces the closure of 1000’s of magnificence parlours nationwide run by girls — typically the one supply of revenue for households — and outlaws one of many few remaining alternatives for them to socialize away from residence.
VIDEO: ðæðë Afghan girls protest towards magnificence parlour ban
A bunch of girls protest in Kabul towards an order by Taliban authorities to close magnificence parlours throughout the nation, the most recent curb to squeeze them out of public life pic.twitter.com/MGGFpJgXOY
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) July 19, 2023
“Don’t take my bread and water,” learn an indication carried by one of many protesters on Butcher Street, which boasts a focus of the capital’s salons.
Public protests are uncommon in Afghanistan — and incessantly dispersed by pressure — however AFP noticed round 50 girls collaborating in Wednesday’s gathering, rapidly attracting the eye of safety personnel.
Protesters later shared movies and pictures with journalists that confirmed authorities utilizing a firehose to disperse them as pictures could possibly be heard within the background.
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“Today we arranged this protest to talk and negotiate,” stated a salon employee, whose identify has not been printed by AFP for safety causes.
“But today, no one came to talk to us, to listen to us. They didn’t pay any attention to us and after a while they dispersed us by aerial firing and water cannon.”
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) condemned the protest breakup.
“Reports of the forceful suppression of a peaceful protest by women against the ban on beauty salons – the latest denial of women’s rights in #Afghanistan – are deeply concerning,” it stated in a tweet.
Reports of the forceful suppression of a peaceable protest by girls towards the ban on magnificence salons – the most recent denial of girls’s rights in #Afghanistan – are deeply regarding.
Afghans have the precise to specific views free from violence. De facto authorities should uphold this.
— UNAMA News (@UNAMAnews) July 19, 2023
“Afghans have the right to express views free from violence. De facto authorities must uphold this.”
In late June the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice gave salons a month to shut down, saying the grace interval would permit them to make use of up inventory.
It stated it made the order as a result of extravagant sums spent on makeovers precipitated hardship for poor households, and that some remedies on the salons have been un-Islamic.
Too a lot make-up prevented girls from correct ablutions for prayer, the ministry stated, whereas eyelash extensions and hair weaving have been additionally forbidden.
A replica of the order seen by AFP stated it was “based on verbal instruction from the supreme leader” Hibatullah Akhundzada.
SAFE PLACE
Beauty parlours mushroomed throughout Kabul and different Afghan cities within the 20 years that United States-led forces occupied the nation.
They have been seen as a secure place to collect and socialise away from males and offered very important enterprise alternatives for girls.
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A report back to the UN’s Human Rights Council final month by Richard Bennett, the particular rapporteur for Afghanistan, stated the plight of girls and ladies within the nation “was among the worst in the world”.
“Grave, systematic and institutionalized discrimination against women and girls is at the heart of Taliban ideology and rule, which also gives rise to concerns that they may be responsible for gender apartheid,” Bennett stated.
Akhundzada, who hardly ever seems in public and guidelines by decree from the Taliban’s birthplace in Kandahar, stated final month Afghan girls have been being saved from “traditional oppressions” by the adoption of Islamic governance and their standing as “free and dignified human beings” restored.
He stated in a press release marking the Eid al-Adha vacation that steps had been taken to supply girls with a “comfortable and prosperous life according to Islamic Sharia”.
Women have additionally principally been barred from working for the UN or NGOs, and 1000’s have been sacked from authorities jobs or are being paid to remain at residence.
