Badakhshan female health employees protested the Taliban’s dress code

Doctors and nurses in the obstetrics and gynaecology department of Badakhshan provincial hospital protested the Taliban’s imposition of a new dress code on Monday. 

The protest started in the morning when the Taliban’s directorate of vice and virtue visited the hospital to introduce a stricter version of their dress code for female employees. The protest continued until noon. 

“This morning, several members of the Taliban’s directorate of vice and virtue visited women’s and obstetrics department of the hospital with black chadors and burqas and asked all the female personnel to wear them at work,” a source from the hospital who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Zan Times.

This Taliban action was met with strong opposition from the hospital’s female staff, who immediately went on strike,  gathering in protest and shouting slogans against the new policy. A video is circulating on social media, showing female and male hospital staff protesting on hospital premises. 

In a video shared with Zan Times, female personnel can be seen in long black dresses with colourful scarves and face masks. “The women are observing the hijab,” says the woman in the video, showing a crowd of fully dressed women. But because of the protests against the new Taliban action, patients are left waiting to be seen, including some in critical condition. 

The hospital source who talked to Zan Times said that the strike ended after the deputy provincial governor intervened and the staff went back to work. 

In May, the Taliban issued a decree that required women to cover their faces in public and advised them that the “first and best sign of observing hijab is not to leave the house.” Moreover, the decree makes women’s male relatives responsible for their compliance, otherwise the male relatives would face fines or jail time. Women’s rights activists warned that requiring male relatives to impose the decree can exacerbate domestic violence in a country where it’s already widespread. Nine out of 10 women in Afghanistan experience at least one form of domestic violence, according to the United Nations.

A resident of Faizabad city in Badakhshan province says that the department of vice and virtue is increasingly targeting women.  “Their forces are roaming around and asking women to wear burqas and hide their entire faces, but it appears women are not following the Taliban decrees,” he said. 

The implementation of the decree depends on the local Taliban. For example, in Herat city, the Taliban are asking married couples to provide marriage certificates if they want to dine together in a restaurant. In Uruzgan, Nangarhar, and Balkh, the Taliban have ordered taxi drivers not to drive women who do not have mahram or a male guardian.

On the anniversary of the Taliban takeover, Sima Bahous, the UN Women executive director said that the Taliban’s “meticulously constructed” policies of inequality “robs the people of Afghanistan of half their talent and energies. It prevents women from leading efforts to build resilient communities and shrinks Afghanistan’s ability to recover from crisis.”