In Kabul, Marsal is planning her first Valentine’s Day as a 21-year-old engaged woman. But under Taliban rule, romance requires careful planning and fallback strategies.
“I’ll take my seven-year-old niece with me,” she says, explaining how she will celebrate with her love. “If I wear proper hijab and she’s with us, maybe the vice and virtue police won’t bother us. We’ll say we’re husband and wife, and she’s our daughter.”
She is referring to officials from the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which is housed at the defunct Ministry of Women’s Affairs since the Taliban retook power in 2021. The ministry’s primary task is to scrutinize interactions between men and women, especially those suspected of being romantically involved. This feels suffocating for a generation that grew up enjoying some freedom: to study, choose their friends, sit together in public, or celebrate occasions like Valentine’s Day. The ministry has become a symbol of state intrusion into private life, particularly for women. On Valentine’s Day, its officers patrol Kabul’s streets, watch restaurant doors, and raid florists selling red roses.
Ahead of this year’s Valentine’s Day, the Taliban’s vice and virtue police have shut down flower shops in western Kabul and assaulted shopkeepers for selling fresh flowers. Zan Times has obtained photos showing bruises on two men who were reportedly beaten by vice and virtue officials on Wednesday. Their alleged offence: selling flowers.
In 2022, the first Valentine’s Day under Taliban rule, the displays of red balloons and flower bouquets in Pul-e-Surkh and Shahr-e-Naw neighbourhoods of Kabul didn’t last long. By midday, Taliban enforcers had swept through, smashing flower pots, tearing down decorations, and dispersing young people. Their message was clear: publicly expressions of love were “un-Islamic” and forbidden.
Norah remembers that day vividly. The 25-year-old had gone to a west Kabul restaurant with her boyfriend. “Two men in white cloaks came and stood in front of us, smiling,” she recalls. “‘Bravo, bravo,’ they said. Then one of them grabbed my boyfriend by the collar and pulled him up.”
More men arrived from outside. A group of four dragged her boyfriend out of the restaurant, beat him, and threatened to arrest them both. “They wanted to take us to the police station. My boyfriend gave them all the money in his pocket so they’d let me go,” Norah says to Zan Times. “I ran to a car and went home. No one in my family knew I had gone out. If they had found out, my father and brothers would have beaten me too.”
After that day, their relationship moved entirely online. They no longer risk going out.
Mursal and her fiancé rely on their phones. Engaged for five months through family arrangements, they’ve only met in person four times. They dream of taking photos together, walking freely, laughing in public – those once ordinary gestures of affection that now feel dangerous. “I wished our engagement period could have been more romantic,” Marsal says. “I think: What if the vice and virtue police catches us, and our parents find out? It would ruin our reputation and happiness.”
It isn’t love itself that is forbidden; it is simply couples being seen together in public. On Valentine’s Day, any man and woman walking side-by-side become suspects.
In 2023, Samira was feeling unwell and had left an underground English class when her cousin offered to accompany her home. The 21-year-old didn’t realise it was Valentine’s Day. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have left the house. I had already struggled so much just to be allowed to study,” she recounts to Zan Times.
A Taliban patrol stopped them. “Are you celebrating Valentine’s Day? How long have you been walking together?” Samira froze. Her cousin tried to explain they were simply going home. A Taliban enforcer slapped him, and both were forced into a vehicle and taken to a police station.
There, officials accused her of “imitating the unbelievers.” Samira insisted she was sick and had no romantic relationship with her cousin. But Taliban enforcers phoned her father: “We caught your daughter with a boy on Valentine’s Day. Bring her ID so we can perform the marriage.”
“I was speechless,” she says. “I knew my father’s heart broke when he heard those words.” Her father, brothers, and uncle came to the station. “My father said it might be a misunderstanding, but my uncle said I wasn’t suitable for his son,” Samira recalls. Despite that, the Taliban insisted on conducting a forced wedding. “Only my cousin and I knew there was no relationship between us,” she says. Samira begged her father to stop it, but he could not.
Two years later, she lives with her husband and their six‑month‑old daughter. They are estranged from both families. “I haven’t been back to my father’s house in two years. My uncle’s family doesn’t treat me well. I often wish I had never left the house that day,” she says. “I’ve suffered from deep depression. My education, my work, and my future were all taken away. I live like a slave in a marriage I didn’t choose.”
Only her husband, also caught in the same trap, listens. “He knows I did nothing wrong. He says he wants to take us abroad so our daughter’s fate doesn’t turn out like mine.”
In Bamiyan province, on Valentine’s Day 2024, Taliban officials publicly flogged 13 men and women for “unlawful relationships” and “running away from home.” That day, 23-year-old Rakhshana wore a red dress as she left her Kabul home. Soon, she was stopped by Taliban enforcers. “Why are you out of the house? What kind of clothes are these?” they asked. She insisted she wasn’t celebrating Valentine’s Day, but was taken to a police station anyway. “They told me I must be going to meet a boy,” she says. Her family pleaded for her release. The Taliban refused until the family paid a 90,000 Afghani bribe.
By 2025, most celebrations marking Valentine’s Day had moved indoors as young couples marked the day at home. Zahra, 25, and her fiancé had planned a special outing last year but decided against it after his friends warned them not to go out in public.
During the Republic years, Valentine’s Day once offered a rare public space for affection. Afghan youth used to call radio stations to dedicate songs, share love messages on social media, and gather in restaurants and cafes. Now it is a test of how far one is willing to go for a few hours together.
Love survives but quietly, in hiding. Smartphones preserve many relationships while secret social media groups circulate romantic stories under pseudonyms.
“We will celebrate somehow,” Marsal says. “Even if it’s just at home.”
Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees and writer. Yalda Amini, Hura Omar, and Laila Zafari are the pseudonyms of journalists in Afghanistan.
