The directorate of vice and virtue in Kandahar province ordered shopkeepers selling women’s clothes and accessories to deny entry to women shopping without a mahram.
Several shopkeepers and women in Kandahar told Zan Times that vice and virtue officials went to the Rang Rizan market, which is selling women’s accessories, and issued verbal warnings to all the shopkeepers that women are not allowed to enter their shops without a close male relative. Rang Rizan market, located in the Police District 2 of Kandahar city, is made up of more than 20 large markets, which have a total of nearly 4,000 shops selling women’s wares such as clothes, shoes, jewellery, cosmetics, and children’s clothes.
“On Friday, when the vice and virtue agents came to announce the decree, some shopkeepers were beaten because women were in their shops,” a shopkeeper who asked not to be named tells Zan Times.
“If we don’t allow women to enter our shop, how can we sell our goods? This is a big problem,” complains another shopkeeper, who also asked for anonymity. The women who regularly shop in this market say that the restrictive orders of the Taliban are making everyday life difficult for them. One woman, who was in the market when this order was announced, tells Zan Times, “The Taliban gunmen in the market told us not to come to the market anymore and send men to do shopping for us.” Yet that isn’t practical, she notes, saying,
“Men are not always free to buy for us and a man does not know what a woman needs or what kind of dress she wears at a wedding party.”
Since regaining power last year, the Taliban have methodically imposed restrictions on women’s movements and their very presence in society. They have deprived girls of the right to education beyond grade six. They have banned women from all but a few fields, including health care, forcing many to stay home. They have imposed an increasingly harsh mandatory dress code and do not allow women to travel without a mahram. Women, including university students, are also being stopped from leaving the country. And in recent weeks, married couples have reported that they aren’t allowed to eat together in restaurants without showing marriage certificates. The Taliban religious police enforce their rules by actively patrolling the streets and harassing any women or men deemed to be in violation.
