When working requires a man and a mahram card
This report is co-published with More To Her Story.
Nazanin, a 23-year-old midwife with four years of experience, can now only go to work if she is accompanied by a man and carries a mahram card. The man, who is her husband, must remain unemployed to serve as her mahram, and they both must carry a card that is issued by Afghanistan’s Health Ministry and approved by the Ministry of Vice and Virtue. Each morning, before putting on her uniform or making breakfast, a familiar question weighs on her mind: “Can my husband come with me today?”
If her husband cannot accompany her, Nazanin is left standing outside the clinic, losing that day’s pay. “So far, there have been only three times that I went without a Mahram and the Vice and Virtue blocked me from entering the clinic and told me that I am not allowed to enter without a Mahram. [All three times] I had returned home and lost the day’s pay.”
She earns 18,000 afghani per month, but a third of it goes toward covering the cost of transportation and food for the mahram. At home, she is responsible for supporting a 12-member family, including a sick mother. If she didn’t have to be accompanied to work, her husband could have a job, earn an income, and help keep the family afloat. “This rule hasn’t only stripped us of our dignity,” she says, “it has shattered the backbone of our family’s economy.”
Nazanin has just one wish: to leave her house and go to work without needing a mahram, just like before.
Since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, Afghan women have seen their rights steadily eroded, banned from schools, barred from employment, and removed from public life. But now, a new rule has added yet another layer of control: the mahram card, a small rectangular white card stamped with the Taliban’s “Islamic Emirate” seal on the upper right corner. It is issued by the Ministry of Vice and Virtue. For women health workers, one of the few remaining employment spaces for women, the card is issued by the Health Ministry and approved by the Vice and Virtue ministry. It takes a one-to-three week process of verifying identity documents, such as a national ID (tazkira) for the father, brother and a marriage certificate for a husband or son.
The rule requires women to be accompanied by a male guardian (mahram) and carry a government-issued card to access public spaces, workplaces, markets, or even pharmacies. Without it, women risk arrest, beatings, job loss or worse. The rule initially came into effect for long distance travel in December 2021, however since then, it has been expanded to include any visit outside the home.
Speaking to Zan Times, women from across Afghanistan, regardless of their age, describe how this policy has transformed their daily lives into a minefield of fear, humiliation, and forced dependency.
Zubaida was always passionate about learning, a young woman with a degree in English literature and teaching experience. She entered the job market in 2018, first working as an instructor at a language institute. After the Taliban takeover, she joined a local organization running WFP (World Food Programme) projects.
“The Vice and Virtue officers came every day,” Zubaida tells Zan Times, “and they became stricter and stricter. Their daily presence and checking every woman for a mahram made it harder for us to continue.” She remembers the day she showed up at work without one: “They didn’t let me into the office. They brought my paperwork outside, I signed it in the car, and went back home.”
In April, when her brother left Afghanistan, everything collapsed for Zubaida. “The office announced that continuing work without a mahram was no longer possible. I was forced to leave a job I loved and had worked hard at for years. Quitting was a huge blow. It was extremely difficult for me to endure.”
Maryam, a legal and monitoring officer at an NGO, has been unable to go to work for three consecutive days [at the time of the interview] because she does not have a mahram. Her husband has passed away and her son is married, leaving her with no male guardian. “I love my job and consider myself a strong woman,” Maryam says, “but I’ve cried so much in the past three days, I feel like all my strength is gone.”
In Maryam’s province in western Afghanistan, a humanitarian aid organization was recently shut down after seven female staff members were arrested for not having a mahram. Following that incident, Maryam’s workplace also barred her from entering the office or the field without a male guardian. The management told her, “God forbid you get arrested, our entire multi-hundred-thousand-dollar project would be at risk.”
Her sister in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan sent her son to accompany Maryam as her mahram. Maryam now places her hope in her nephew who is making an 11-hour, 1,200-kilometer journey across the country to serve as a guardian for his 48-year-old aunt.
Maryam hopes that once he arrives, she’ll be able to obtain a mahram card and return to work. “Today, when my nephew called and said, ‘Dear Aunt, I’m on my way to be your mahram,’ I cried out of joy,” she says.
In the scorching heat of Kandahar, beneath midwifery uniforms, black hijabs, and burqas that cover them to the ankles, young women struggle to breathe. Simin was one of them — a student in one of the midwifery programs in Kandahar, who, in pursuit of her dream to become a midwife, forced her breadwinner father to miss work every day just to accompany her as her mahram. At the institute’s entrance and hospital gate, two Taliban Vice and Virtue officers sat daily. Anyone arriving without a male guardian was turned away. Their message was clear: “Wear a burqa, wear hijab, and bring a mahram.”
Despite everything, Simin says, “We told ourselves, it’s okay, at least we’re allowed to study, and we accept that.” But even that minimal hope was taken from them.
The institute was shut down in June 2024. Simin and her classmates returned multiple times to ask for permission to continue their studies, but they were not allowed to enter. They were left standing outside with their cards, with their mahrams and with their burqas.
At Taliban checkpoints, Vice and Virtue officers inspect mahram cards and interrogate women and men separately: What is your familial relationship? What’s your father’s name? Your grandfather’s?
Fatima, an educated middle-aged woman from one of Afghanistan’s western provinces, went out alone to buy household essentials. She took a taxi. Near a Taliban checkpoint, one of them ordered her out. “He asked, ‘Where’s your mahram?’ I replied, I don’t have one. I had no choice but to come alone.” He snapped at her, saying “Don’t talk back, or I’ll beat you!”
The taxi driver, seeing things escalate, said, “Go, just go from here!”
I walked back home in fear, terrified I might be followed the whole way.
“Now, I no longer dare step outside. My house has become my cage. Not having a mahram has become a crime, one that strips us of everything: the right to work, to shop, even to save the lives of our loved ones.”
Sana Atef is a Zan Times journalist.
