Harsh laws imposed by the Taliban grossly restrict freedom of Afghan women; public parks, fun fairs added to list of no-go zones

Sanjeev Gupta. l EPA

Sanjeev Gupta. l EPA

Published Dec 1, 2022

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Cape Town – Afghani women will no longer be allowed in parks, a spokesperson for the Taliban's morality ministry has said, as women in Kabul continue to face harsh human rights abuses.

According to the Taliban’s morality ministry, their decision to bar women from parks is in part because they hadn’t been meeting its interpretation of Islamic attire during their visits.

The latest rules come merely months after the Taliban, which returned to power in August 2021, ordered access to parks to be segregated by gender.

Places women are banned from

Women are banned from travelling without a male escort.

Women must wear a hijab or burqa whenever out of the home.

Secondary schools for girls have also been shut for over a year across most of the country.

Women were recently barred from swimming pools and gyms in the capital.

Citing a BBC report, an activist by the name of Laila Basim has co-founded a library for women in Afghanistan. It has thousands of books in different languages on diverse subjects.

"With this we want to show the Taliban: that Afghan women won't stay silent. Our second goal is to expand the culture of reading books among women, particularly those girls who are deprived of education," she says, citing BBC World News.

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