KABUL, Apr 07 (IPS) – The writer is an Afghanistan-based feminine journalist, educated with Finnish assist earlier than the Taliban take-over. Her id is withheld for safety reasonsWomen in Afghanistan have borne the brunt of the Taliban’s extremist Islamist rule. 4 years on, there seems to be no finish in sight.
In a rustic the place girls are denied the precise to schooling, work and the liberty to journey with out the corporate of a mahram – a male relative – the Taliban now search to erase what little stays of ladies’s autonomy, even going as far as to confiscate their cosmetics.
In February this 12 months, the Taliban launched home raids to grab girls’s magnificence merchandise, yet one more act that marks a brand new low of their marketing campaign to oppress and exclude girls from pubilc and personal life.
As Farida, (pseudonym) a girl from Sar-e-Pul metropolis in northern Afghanistan recounts the surprising incident, “I used to be sitting at house that day when out of the blue there was a loud banging on the door. My coronary heart began pounding. My husband opened the door with trembling arms, and earlier than he might utter a phrase, armed males in white garments burst into the home”.
“They searched each room and turned every part the wrong way up in our house”, she mentioned, “as if a burglar had entered the home, however this time, the burglars have been the very individuals who think about themselves rulers of this land”.
They hurled out every part, mentioned Farida, whereas certainly one of them picked up a lipstick and with contempt, mentioned, “That is disgraceful! Muslim girls do not want this”, and carried the cosmetics away in a bag.
Afghan girls are not secure even throughout the 4 partitions of their very own properties; steadily subjected to humiliation, threats of violence and not actually have a alternative over their private belongings.
With tears in her eyes Farida mentioned, “I felt like that they had crushed my total being”, in reference to the raid, “it was not simply an assault on amassing cosmetics; it was an assault on our dignity. It felt as if all our rights and privileges as girls had been stripped away,” she says.
Shopping for and promoting cosmetics in Sar-e-Pul metropolis has not been a difficulty, however following a current tip off, members of the Committee for the Promotion of Advantage and Prevention of Vice occurred to have seized all cosmetics whereas conducting a seek for girls’s hair salons and sweetness parlours who have been working secretly within the space.
Tamana, (pseudonym) a 22-year-old girl in Sar e Pol metropolis who was prevented from furthering her schooling, selected hairdressing to assist herself, however she is now in despair.
In a phone dialog, she mentioned, “all I wished was to finish my research and grow to be a health care provider however sadly, with the arrival of the Taliban, we have been denied the chance to proceed additional.
“For a 12 months”, Tamana mentioned, “I ran a hair salon at house, the place girls would come secretly – principally at evening – and obtain magnificence and make-up companies”.
However in response to her, that ended when spies tipped off the Taliban they usually attacked their home, destroyed all of the furnishings, seized all of the make-up, and made them promise not to try this once more.
“Now, I’ve no different supply of revenue”, she complained, and requested, “Why are they so afraid of ladies? Why cannot they present us mercy even in our personal properties?”
Tamana complained bitterly that the sweetness companies she supplied to girls was her solely supply of revenue, which supported her aged father who works “tirelessly from morning till evening, repairing individuals’s footwear, however earns little or no to make ends meet”.
To Farida, seizing girls’s cosmetics “is unnecessary”. As she factors out, “shopping for and promoting cosmetics is freely out there in outlets across the metropolis, and girls don’t have any problem shopping for them”.
Apart from that, she say, “girls like me, who’re at the moment housewives with no jobs, can not afford a variety of cosmetics. Due to this fact, “now we have solely fundamental cosmetics akin to make-up, eye shadow, mascara, eyeliner, lipstick, nail polish, and fragrance, which we principally use for weddings and birthday events”.
Provided that state of affairs, the Taliban’s raids on individuals’s properties and seizing cosmetics is seen as greater than only a repressive act. Fairly, it displays the Taliban’s worry of ladies’s unbiased id and their femininity. For the Taliban, the capability of ladies to make choices for themselves, even regarding probably the most non-public issues, is a menace to their rule.
They wish to flip the ladies of Afghanistan into obedient, colourless, and unvoiced beings. To the Taliban, carrying make-up, even in its easiest kind, is an indication of a girls’s need for magnificence, id, and independence, and that must be crushed.
The consequence of the home raids is that girls grow to be anxious and fearful; they even resolve to destroy their very own cosmetics. In doing so, they aren’t simply discarding belongings—they’re casting away part of themselves and their sense of id.
“The fierce faces of the Taliban are nonetheless in my thoughts and constantly hang-out me”, remembers Tamana”, after the raid was carried out. “After they left, I felt nugatory. It was as if nothing was left of me. They not solely took our cosmetics, they took our hope and vanity with them.”
However regardless of all of the repressions, Afghan girls haven’t given up. They persist of their silent resistance, subtly demonstrating admirable braveness.
Despite the restrictions, they haven’t deserted their desires, hoping that someday, the darkness will carry and light-weight will shine on Afghan girls as soon as once more.
© Inter Press Service (2025) — All Rights Reserved. Unique supply: Inter Press Service
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/Health-GettyImages-1264984718-99cd49880609428e9a7ed726a060c1c7.jpg "Can Supplements Really Protect Your Skin From the Sun?")
