By Matin Mehrab
Rasool* had operated a tailor shop in Herat city for the past 15 years and was famous for sewing stylish women’s clothes. But due to Taliban regulations imposed on women and tailors in the city, no woman has stepped into his shop in the past six months.
“In the past six months, the Taliban has focused their attention on tailors who make women’s clothes: prohibiting measurements of women by male tailors, not allowing women to go to tailor shops when men are present, and now closing the doors of women’s tailor shops,” he explains to Zan Times.
Rasool says that the Taliban department of vice and virtue have closed most of the women’s sewing shops. At the same time, the Taliban have ordered tailors not to use smartphones in their shops. Since Rasool’s customers often sent their desired clothing designs to his smartphone, Rasool did not take this order of the Taliban very seriously. Then, one day in September, while Rasool was sitting in his shop and looking at clothing samples on his phone, agents of Taliban vice and virtue entered his shop and arrested him and his 15-year-old apprentice.
“First they violently beat us and then we were transferred to a vice and virtue office. There, we were imprisoned in a container for 24 hours.”
Rasool says that he and his apprentice student spent those 24 hours without being given food and water. Finally, they were released from the Taliban prison by by a guarantor.
The Taliban directorate of vice and virtue in Herat told male tailors that they are no longer allowed to sew women’s clothes, an order implemented in other provinces, including Daikundi.
Fereydoun* is a tailor who has a women’s clothing and tailor shop in downtown Herat. The Taliban vice and virtue agents have come to his shop several times. In October, the Taliban shut his shop for a week because he was working on a bride’s wedding dress.
In November, the Taliban again closed his shop and also arrested him because he had been conversing with a female customer. After spending a day and night in prison, Fereydoun was released on bail.
He says that life is miserable for tailors, caught between a worsening economy and Taliban regulations. Before August 2021, he made 1,000 afghanis a day on average. But since they returned, he hasn’t earned more than 200 afghanis a day. Fereydoun is thinking that he’ll have no choice but to leave for Iran if the situation doesn’t improve.
Clients of Herat’s tailor shops are also affected, such as 45-year-old Humaira*, who used to take her clothes to Rasool. Now, she has no choice but to sew her clothes at home, she tells Zan Times. She believes that these Taliban regulations were introduced to isolate women and make them stay at home.
Two months ago, a number of businesswomen in Daikundi province told Zan Times that the Taliban’s directorate of vice and virtue had ordered them to avoid doing business with male clients and employers. “After this, women tailors not only do not have the right to sew men’s clothes, but they do not even have the right to look at men,” a female business woman told Zan Times. The Taliban also threatened to close the shops of those who violated their orders.
The Taliban restrictions on women business owners are part of a huge number of edicts aimed at women. Among other things, women were fired from most jobs in the public sector, women can’t access bathhouses or amusement parks, they can’t travel without male companions, and women aren’t allowed to use sports clubs.
Human rights experts and organizations in the world have been appalled by the Taliban’s misogynistic edicts. Two weeks ago, Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on human rights affairs in Afghanistan, called the imposition of these restrictions on Afghan women and girls “an example of a crime against humanity” and said that the Taliban had grossly violated human rights and freedoms.
*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees.
