Kabul:

The Taliban government’s new law to “promote virtue and prevent vice” has codified their austere rules for Afghan society, dictating strict controls according to their vision of Islam.

In recent days there has been evidence of Taliban morality police enforcing the legislation, as well as Afghans self-policing to avoid conflicts with officials.

However, other elements are yet to be enforced and Taliban authorities have already been clamping down on behaviour they deem un-Islamic since surging back to power three years ago.

Here is what we know about the new law and its effect on society:

The new order

The text contains 35 articles. The most criticised dictates that a woman’s voice should not be raised outside the home and that they should not sing or read poetry aloud.

Unrelated men and women are forbidden from looking at each other, and women are commanded to cover themselves entirely in front of non-Muslim women.

Men are ordered to grow beards longer than a fist, wear loose-fitting clothes and not reveal their bodies between the navel and the knee. Sodomy is banned “even with one’s own wife”.

The media has been banned from mocking or humiliating Islam, transport companies told to alter schedules to fit prayer times and Muslims told they should not befriend or help non-Muslims.

Some traditional games have also been banned, as well as taking or viewing photos of living things on computers or smartphones.

Disobedience of parents has also been outlawed.

Changes in society

Over the past two weeks since the law was announced on August 21, AFP has collected testimonies of increasing scrutiny by Taliban officials.

Enforcement is tasked to morality police from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

In the capital Kabul, patrol teams have given warnings to women travelling without a male “mahram” chaperone, and with part of their hair or hands showing.

A 23-year-old Kabul man said he was stopped three times. 

“They asked me why I didn’t have a beard. I was scared and promised them I would grow one,” he told AFP.

In northern Mazar-e-Sharif, a taxi driver said he was “warned many times not to transport women without a mahram” or women not fully covered, and in central Parwan, women were chastised for not covering their faces.

In a Kabul bank, all the staff have swapped their western wear for traditional dress in a bid to comply with the new law.

However, this week, women’s voices could still be heard on TV and radio stations.

Previous strictures

Since ousting US-led troops in 2021, the Taliban government has intermittently announced social curbs with an emphasis on separating men and women.

Many of those previous orders overlap with the new law and were already in effect.

Girls have long been banned from secondary school and women from universities. Women travelling were previously ordered to be chaperoned by a family member and to cover themselves from head to toe in public.

Prayer at set times has been deemed obligatory while music in public and gambling have been outlawed.

Segregation of men and women is already required in most public places. Adultery, homosexuality and drug addiction have also been previously banned.

However, the new document is the most comprehensive manifesto of the Taliban’s vision for society since their return and outlines graduated punishments morality police can dole out.

They range from verbal warnings to threats, fines and detentions of varying lengths.

Grey areas

The law announced by the largely opaque Taliban government leaves many questions unanswered.

It says women should only leave home for an “urgent need”, but does not outline what situations they deem urgent.

With friendship and assistance to non-Muslims banned, it is unclear whether Afghans are banned from working with international organisations — a major lifeline for the economically bedraggled country.

It may also imply the Taliban government themselves are forbidden from dealing with western nations, further cementing their pariah status. And it’s unclear how media on phones and TV will be policed.

But perhaps the largest question is how uniformly and rigorously the new law will be enforced.

A United Nations report in July said there were “ambiguities and inconsistencies” around morality measures and their enforcement before this new law.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Police in the Afghan capital say a suicide bomber carried out an attack Monday (September 2, 2024), killing at least six people and injuring 13 others.

The blast took place in the southwestern Qala Bakhtiar neighbourhood in Kabul, said Khalid Zadran, spokesman for the Kabul police chief.

The dead included one woman, he said, while 13 people were wounded, all of them civilians who were taken to a hospital for treatment.

A police investigation is underway. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing.

The Islamic State group’s affiliate, a major rival of the ruling Taliban, has carried out previous attacks on schools, hospitals, mosques and Shiite areas throughout the country.

The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 during the chaotic departure of U.S. and NATO troops after 20 years. Despite initial promises of a more moderate stance, the Taliban gradually reimposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law, or Shariah, as they did during their previous rule of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

An Afghan woman clad in a burqa walks past a graffiti painted wall, in Herat, west of Kabul, Afghanistan on Thursday, May 13, 2010. (AP Photo/Reza Shirmohammadi)
| Photo Credit: REZA SHIRMOHAMMADI

The Taliban government’s Morality Ministry said it would not cooperate with the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, calling it “an opposing side”.

The announcement comes after the UN mission (UNAMA) warned that a new morality law — requiring women to cover up completely and not raise their voices — would damage prospects for engagement with the international community.

The Taliban Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV) said that “due to its continued propaganda, the PVPV will not provide any support or cooperation with UNAMA, which will be considered as an opposing side”.

“We want international organisations, countries, and those individuals who criticised the mentioned law to respect the religious values of Muslims and refrain from such criticisms and statements that insult Islamic values and sanctities,” the ministry said in a statement posted to social media Thursday.

Last week, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, was banned from entering the country after joining other UN experts in a statement urging the international community to “not normalise the de facto authorities or their appalling human rights violations”.

Chief Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told local media Tolo News that Mr. Bennett “was appointed to Afghanistan to spread propaganda and he is not someone whose words we can trust.”

The Taliban authorities, which are yet to be formally recognised by any nation, are still pushing to fill Afghanistan’s seat at the UN, which is held by a former official of the ousted foreign-backed government.

Punishments

The Taliban government’s 35-article morality law was published in the official gazette on July 31.

It imposes wide-ranging rules on men’s clothing and attending prayers as well as bans on keeping photos of living beings, homosexuality, animal fighting, playing music in public and non-Muslim holidays.

The law sets out graduated punishments, from verbal warnings to threats, fines and detentions of varying lengths.

Roza Otunbayeva, head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, has called the law a “distressing vision for Afghanistan’s future, where moral inspectors have discretionary powers to threaten and detain anyone based on broad and sometimes vague lists of infractions”.

The United Nations and the European Union have warned that the law could damage prospects for engagement with the international community.

UNAMA is mandated by the UN Security Council to engage with the Taliban authorities, including the PVPV, with which it has directly raised concerns over moral oversight policy and practices of enforcement.

In a report last month, UNAMA said the ministry had a growing role in enforcing religious law in Afghanistan and accused it of creating a “climate of fear”.

The virtue and vice ministry implements an austere vision of Islam, which has increasingly dominated Afghanistan since the 2021 Taliban takeover.

Morality police squads are empowered to scold, arrest and punish citizens violating edicts. The laws have marginalised women, effectively banned music and outlawed other activities deemed un-Islamic.

The Taliban government has consistently dismissed international criticism of its policies, including restrictions on women that the UN has labelled “gender apartheid”.

The law is “firmly rooted in Islamic teachings” that should be respected and understood, chief government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement on Monday.

“To reject these laws without such understanding is, in our view, an expression of arrogance,” he said, adding that for a Muslim to criticise the law “may even lead to the decline of their faith”.

An Afghan woman sings in a video showing just a sliver of her face, one of dozens of women taking part in an online protest against a law that bans women from raising their voices in public.

Taliban authorities last week announced the law, which includes rules that women’s faces, bodies and voices should be “covered” outside the home, among 35 articles dictating behaviour and lifestyle.

In response, Afghan women inside and outside the country have posted videos on social media of them singing, along with hashtags such as “My voice is not forbidden” and “No to Taliban”.

Former policewoman Zala Zazai, who currently lives in Poland, shared a video of herself singing a song by well-known artist Aryana Sayeed about the resilience of Afghan women.

She told AFP the restrictions on Afghan women were “unacceptable”.

“Afghan women have come to understand that misogynists can no longer deny our human rights in the name of religion and culture. And our voices calling for our rights will never be silenced,” she said.

In another video, reportedly shot inside Afghanistan, a woman is shown singing while dressed head to toe in black, with a long veil over her face.

“You have silenced my voice for the foreseeable future… you have imprisoned me in my home for the crime of being a woman,” she says.

Groups of women activists posted videos raising their fists or tearing photos of the Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, who rules by decree from the southern city of Kandahar.

“A woman’s voice is the voice of justice,” an activist group chants in another video.

The law on the “Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” formalises many rules already in place since the Taliban swept to power in 2021, implementing a strict interpretation of Islamic law — or Sharia.

It says women must not sing or recite aloud in public or let their voices carry beyond the walls of their homes.

“When an adult woman has to leave her home out of necessity, she is required to cover her face, body and voice,” it says.

The law refers to women’s voices as “aurat” — a term used in sharia to denote the intimate parts of a man or woman that must be covered.

Chief Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has said criticism of the law exposes “arrogance” and misunderstanding of sharia.

Women have borne the brunt of restrictions, including on access to education, public spaces and certain jobs, that the United Nations has labelled “gender apartheid”.

The UN and other international bodies have condemned the new law, saying it further squeezes women’s rights.

On Tuesday (August 27, 2024), the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called for the law to be repealed, calling it “utterly intolerable”.

The law “cements policies that completely erase women’s presence in public — silencing their voices, and depriving them of their individual autonomy, effectively attempting to render them into faceless, voiceless shadows”, said spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani.

Three years after the suicide bomber attack at Afghanistan’s Abbey Gate that killed 13 US service personnel and about 170 Afghan civilians, the network behind the perpetrator is “pretty degraded” but not eliminated, the Pentagon’s civilian commando chief said.

“A lot of allied and partner disruptions” of the ISIS-K network have reduced its “capability to conduct such an attack,” Christopher Maier, assistant secretary for special operations and low-intensity conflict, said in a brief interview after a breakfast meeting with reporters Friday.

President Joe Biden promised on the day of the attack outside Hamid Karzai International Airport that “we will not forgive, we will not forget, we will hunt you down and make you pay.” Maier said “we are in the process of doing that,” and “we have made significant dents in this network that conducted the Abbey Gate attack.”

The attack three years ago next Monday marked a devastating low point in an operation that critics have lambasted as chaotic even as 124,000 Afghans were evacuated amid the US exit from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover of the country.

Republicans have seized on the attack to blast Biden’s foreign policy. During his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in July, former President Donald Trump said US standing in the world “began to unravel with the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the worst humiliation in the history of our country.” 

Trump forged a February 2020 deal with the Taliban, but not the Afghan government, that set an initial timetable for US troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, which Biden modified. Trump and the Republican Party blame Biden – and now Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee to succeed him – for how the withdrawal was carried out. 

During the breakfast with reporters, Maier said “we continue to assess that Abbey Gate” was the work of “more than one individual” who benefited from the ISIS-K infrastructure. Since then, he said, the US and partners “have had clear cases where we’ve been able to disrupt the network that was associated with Abbey Gate.” 

“One of the things we have been able to benefit from is Central Asian countries more attuned from the threat from Afghanistan,” he said. “Some of the recent plots that have been foiled point to direct support from some of these partners,” he said, without naming the countries involved.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee plans to release its review of the withdrawal from Afghanistan early next month.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Afghan primary school girls make their way to home near the Shuhada lake in Kabul on March 24, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Taliban have deliberately deprived 1.4 million Afghan girls of schooling through bans, a U.N. agency said on Thursday (August 15, 2024). Afghanistan is the only country in the world with bans on female secondary and higher education.

The Taliban, who took power in 2021, barred education for girls above sixth grade because they said it didn’t comply with their interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law. They didn’t stop it for boys and show no sign of taking the steps needed to reopen classrooms and campuses for girls and women.

UNESCO said at least 1.4 million girls have been deliberately denied access to secondary education since the takeover, an increase of 300,000 since its previous count in April 2023, with more girls reaching the age limit of 12 every year.

“If we add the girls who were already out of school before the bans were introduced, there are now almost 2.5 million girls in the country deprived of their right to education, representing 80% of Afghan school-age girls,” the UNESCO said.

The Taliban could not be immediately reached for comment.

Access to primary education has also fallen since the Taliban took power in Aug. 2021, with 1.1 million fewer girls and boys attending school, according to UNESCO data.

The U.N. agency warned that authorities have “almost wiped out” two decades of steady progress for education in Afghanistan. “The future of an entire generation is now in jeopardy,” it added.

It said Afghanistan had 5.7 million girls and boys in primary school in 2022, compared with 6.8 million in 2019. The enrollment drop was the result of the Taliban decision to bar female teachers from teaching boys, the UNESCO said, but could also be explained by a lack of parental incentive to send their children to school in an increasingly tough economic environment.

“UNESCO is alarmed by the harmful consequences of this increasingly massive drop-out rate, which could lead to a rise in child labour and early marriage,” it said.

The Taliban on Wednesday (August 14, 2024) celebrated three years of rule at Bagram Air Base, but there was no mention of the country’s hardships or promises to help the struggling population.

Decades of conflict and instability have left millions of Afghans on the brink of hunger and starvation and unemployment is high.

Kabul:

At least 1.4 million girls in Afghanistan have been denied access to secondary education since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, with the future of an entire generation now “in jeopardy”, the United Nations’ cultural agency said Thursday.

Access to primary education has also fallen sharply, with 1.1 million fewer girls and boys attending school, UNESCO said in a statement as the Taliban authorities marked three years since retaking Afghanistan on August 15, 2021.

“UNESCO is alarmed by the harmful consequences of this increasingly massive drop-out rate, which could lead to a rise in child labour and early marriage,” the agency said.

“In just three years, the de facto authorities have almost wiped out two decades of steady progress for education in Afghanistan, and the future of an entire generation is now in jeopardy.”

There are now nearly 2.5 million girls deprived of their right to education, representing 80 percent of Afghan school-age girls, the UN agency said.

The Taliban administration, which is not recognised by any other country, has imposed restrictions on women that the UN has described as “gender apartheid.”

Afghanistan is the only country in the world to stop girls and women attending secondary schools and universities.

“As a result of bans imposed by the de facto authorities, at least 1.4 million girls have been deliberately denied access to secondary education since 2021,” UNESCO said.

This represents an increase of 300,000 since the previous count carried out by the UN agency in April 2023.

UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay urged the international community to remain mobilised “to obtain the unconditional reopening of schools and universities to Afghan girls and women.”

The number of primary pupils has also fallen. Afghanistan had only 5.7 million girls and boys in primary school in 2022, compared with 6.8 million in 2019, UNESCO said.

The UN agency blamed the drop on the authorities’ decision to ban female teachers from teaching boys as well as the lack of incentive for parents to send children to school.

Enrolment in higher education in equally concerning, the statement said, adding that the number of university students had decreased by 53 percent since 2021.

“As a result, the country will rapidly face a shortage of graduates trained for the most highly-skilled jobs, which will only exacerbate development problems,” UNESCO said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

On August 15, 2021, the Taliban swiftly took over Kabul following the withdrawal of the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), marking a significant diplomatic setback for India. The Taliban were believed to have support from the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP) operating around the Durand Line, as well as from moderates in Doha.

Amidst the ensuing chaos, India was forced to shut down its embassy in Kabul, evacuating diplomats and citizens. New Delhi had invested heavily in Afghanistan, but the future seemed uncertain under the shadow of conflict. As of August 2020, there were approximately 1,710 Indians in Afghanistan, working in sectors such as banking, IT, construction, healthcare, NGOs, telecom, security, and education, as well as with Afghan and UN missions.

Aid to Afghanistan

The Taliban’s return and the subsequent withdrawal of international forces led many countries, including India, to pull out. However, the Taliban leadership soon realized that running a government required more than just military might-it needed external funds and assistance. New Delhi has cautiously responded to Kabul’s appeals for aid. Important delegations visited Afghanistan, and a technical mission was established in June 2022 to better understand and coordinate humanitarian efforts.

Since 2001, India has committed over USD 3 billion to development and reconstruction projects in Afghanistan. Bilateral trade between India and Afghanistan was valued at USD 1.5 billion in 2019-20. India has supported projects such as a new Parliament building in Kabul and two major river dams. More than 500 projects span across 34 Afghan provinces, addressing critical areas such as power, water supply, road connectivity, healthcare, education, agriculture, and capacity building.

Various bilateral and multilateral meetings have taken place, and the Union Budget for 2024-25 allocated Rs. 200 crores to Afghanistan. This represents a decrease from Rs. 350 crores in the 2021-22 budget.

The Taliban have urged India to resume development projects, arguing that such initiatives would create job opportunities, alleviate poverty, and support development.

The China Factor

India’s outreach to Afghanistan is influenced by the regional dynamics, including China’s growing activity. Initially excluded from China’s expansive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Asia, Afghanistan has seen increased Chinese involvement and funding. A Parliamentary Committee on External Affairs report from last year noted the strategic importance for India to deepen ties with its smaller neighbours in response to China’s BRI and America’s Indo-Pacific vision.

China is courting the Taliban to counter the Uyghur separatist movement. Beijing wants the Taliban to address the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement, which, according to a 2021 UN report, is active in Badakhshan, Faryab, Kabul, and Nuristan provinces. The report indicated that the group seeks to establish a Uyghur state in Xinjiang, China, and facilitates the movement of fighters from Afghanistan to China.

Despite its efforts, Beijing’s support for Afghanistan has not met all expectations. China has provided funds, machinery, and technical support, but not as generously as Afghanistan hoped. The country’s economic growth was recorded at -6.2% in 2022, according to Afghanistan’s National Statistics and Information Authority (NSIA).

Pakistan No Longer a Friend

Pakistan has long served as a training ground and launchpad for the Mujahideen in their struggle against Soviet forces. Reportedly supported by the CIA, Peshawar in Pakistan quickly became a crucial hub for the fighters. This is well-documented in The Bear Trap by Brigadier Mohammed Yousuf and Mark Adkin. Yousuf, who led Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Afghan desk from 1983 to 1987, and Adkin, a major in the British Army, detail the logistical and military support Pakistan received from the CIA during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Beyond the USA and the former USSR, several other countries have played strategic games in Afghanistan due to its geopolitical significance. This has resulted in the division of its people along ethnic and cultural lines to serve the interests of these external powers. Peter Hopkirk chronicles this history in The Great Game, a term coined by British intelligence officer Captain Arthur Conolly during the British occupation of the country in the 19th century.

Despite their ethnic differences, Afghans have resisted aggressors for centuries. During the Soviet era, Pashtuns from the south and Tajiks and Uzbeks from the north employed guerrilla tactics, striking and retreating across the country’s rugged terrain.

A paper by Amna Puri-Mirza, a researcher specializing in the Middle East, published in September 2022, reveals that as of 2020, Afghanistan’s population of approximately 33 million was composed of 42% Pashtuns, 27% Tajiks, and 9% Hazaras. The CIA World Factbook estimates that in 2020, Afghan Persian (Dari) and Pashto were spoken by 77% and 48% of the population, respectively.

The Durand Line, established in November 1893 as the official boundary between undivided India and Afghanistan, remains contentious. Afghanistan has never accepted this boundary, seeking its shift eastward to incorporate Pashtun-majority areas in Pakistan. This disagreement has led to intermittent conflicts.

Relations between Islamabad and Kabul have deteriorated as Pakistan has increased its pressure on Afghanistan for harbouring “Pakistani Taliban” and for alleged strikes on Pakistani soil. Frequent gunfights have led to the closure of the border, causing significant disruptions for Afghan traders. Key border crossings like Torkham and Spin Boldak have been particularly affected, with long queues of stranded vehicles.

India has faced setbacks in its involvement in Afghanistan over the past three decades. In the ongoing great game, countries like China, Russia, and Iran are influential in shaping Afghanistan’s future, and India must navigate these shifting alliances carefully.

(Jayanta Bhattacharya is a senior journalist writing on polls and politics, conflict, farmer and human interest issues)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

Kabul, Afghanistan:

Despite three years of improved security following the end of the Taliban’s insurgency, Afghanistan’s economy remains stagnant and its population is in the grips of a worsening humanitarian crisis.

A third of Afghanistan’s roughly 40 million people live on bread and tea, according to the United Nations, there is massive unemployment, and the World Bank warns of zero growth over the next three years.

But there have been some positive changes since the Taliban takeover in 2021 — even if their government remains unrecognised by any other country.

The currency has been resilient, corruption is no longer ubiquitous, and tax collection has improved.

Authorities have also built “economic, commercial, transit and investment” ties in the region, according to Ahmad Zahid, deputy commerce and industry minister.

Afghanistan has great mineral and agricultural potential, which the Taliban government is attempting to exploit, but they are impeded by poor infrastructure and a lack of domestic and foreign expertise and capital.

Though Afghans welcome the improved security in their lives, many are just trying to make ends meet.

AFP spoke to four people from different parts of the country ahead of the anniversary of the fall of Kabul this week:

The optimistic businessman 

For 54-year-old Azizullah Rehmati, business is booming — his saffron company in the western province of Herat is set to double production this year.

Until 2021, his “Red Gold Saffron Company” hired armed guards to escort the valuable spice from the factory to the airport, but the improved security climate has done away with the need for such overt protection.

“Now there is no problem,” said Rehmati, who exports to 27 countries.

At his processing facility, women sort the red stigmas of the precious saffron spice with tongs.

Taliban government restrictions on women have slashed their participation in the workforce, but Rehmati’s company is among the 50 per cent of Afghan employers who still hire women.

Still, a key challenge for Rehmati — and Afghanistan as a whole — is the crippled banking sector.

“It is so important that we have the banking channels reopened,” said Sulaiman Bin Shah, deputy trade minister under the previous government.

The sector has been blocked by international sanctions and the freezing of central bank assets.

Rehmati’s bank can’t send money abroad — or receive transfers — meaning he has to resort to more expensive private money changers in Dubai.

Getting visas for foreign trips is also a major problem.

Many foreign nations shuttered their embassies in the wake of the Taliban takeover and Afghan passports are rated the worst in the world by the Henley Index, which tracks global ease of travel.

“We will fall back from the world market,” Rehmati said.

The out-of-work musician 

Wahid Nekzai Logari played in Afghanistan’s national orchestra and performed concerts on the sarinda, a traditional stringed instrument, as well as the harmonium.

“I supported my whole family. We had a good life,” said the 46-year-old in his modest home in a Kabul suburb.

But the Taliban government has prohibited public performances of music, deeming it un-Islamic, leaving thousands involved in the industry destitute.

“Now I’m unemployed,” Logari said.

To feed his family of seven he sometimes drives a cab — earning just 5,000 afghanis a month ($70), a fifth of what he used to earn from his concerts.

“Nobody told us, ‘You can’t play music anymore, but we’ll find you a way to feed your family’,” he said.

The insurgent-turned-bureaucrat 

Abdul Wali Shaheen wanted to “die a martyr’s death” in the Taliban ranks, but after their victory, he swapped his rocket launcher for a computer at the Department of Information and Culture in Ghazni province.

“I wasn’t as stressed (then) as I am today,” the 31-year-old said wryly.

“All we did was wage jihad, now it’s harder. I have more responsibilities in regards to the people.”

Still, Shaheen’s monthly salary of 10,000 Afghanis is enough to feed his family of five, and he is happy with the direction the country is going.

“I give the Emirate a 10/10 for these three years,” he said.

“Everything is going well and we have hope for the future.”

The Hidden Beautician 

The order to close beauty salons last year “broke her heart”, but Sayeda — not her real name — reopened in secret four months ago elsewhere in Kabul.

“We found this place to rent, with the condition that customers come very discreetly and that some of our employees sleep here so that neighbours think a family lives here,” said the 21-year-old manager.

“Before, we had 30 to 40 customers a day, now it’s six or seven,” said Sayeda, who has nevertheless kept her 25 employees so that “everyone has an income”.

Sayeda’s salary has dropped from 25,000 afghanis per month to between 8,000 and 12,000.

“We’re working in hiding and we don’t know for how much longer,” she said, noting the risk of being shut down by the police.

When they’ve “found some (underground) salons, they broke the equipment, mistreated the staff” and imposed fines, she said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Doha, Qatar:

Taliban authorities were told women must be included in public life, UN Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo said on Monday as she defended a decision to sideline civil society groups at official talks in Doha.

Rights organisations have strongly criticised the controversial UN move to exclude the groups, including women’s rights activists, from the two-day meeting on Afghanistan as the price for the Taliban government’s participation.

“Authorities will not sit across the table with Afghan civil society in this format, but they have heard very clearly the need to include women and civil society in all aspects of public life”, DiCarlo told a Doha news conference.

The UN-hosted meeting began on Sunday and is the third such gathering to be held in Qatar in a little over a year, but the first to include the Taliban authorities who seized power in Afghanistan for a second time in 2021.

The talks were due to discuss increasing engagement with Afghanistan and a more coordinated response to the country, including economic issues and counter-narcotics efforts.

The international community has wrestled with its approach to the Taliban since they returned to power, with no country officially recognising its government.

 ‘Gender apartheid’ 

The group has imposed a strict interpretation of Islam, with women subjected to laws characterised by the UN as “gender apartheid”.

The Taliban refused an invitation to Doha talks in February, insisting on being the only Afghan representatives, to the exclusion of civil society groups. But their condition was accepted in the build-up to this latest round.

The United States said it agreed to participate in Monday’s talks after receiving assurances that the talks would meaningfully discuss human rights.

US point man on Afghanistan Thomas West and Rina Amiri, the US special envoy on the rights of Afghan women and girls, in Doha “made clear that the Afghan economy cannot grow while half the population’s rights are not respected”, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said.

DiCarlo, who chaired the UN talks in the Qatari capital, said she “hopes” that “there’ll be new consideration” of Taliban government policy on women in public life including girls’ education.

The UN and international delegations will have the chance to meet with civil society representatives, including women’s rights groups, following the close of the main meetings.

But Amnesty International chief Agnes Callamard said in a statement ahead of the talks that “caving into the Taliban’s conditions to secure their participation in the talks would risk legitimising their gender-based institutionalised system of oppression”.

The Taliban authorities have repeatedly said the rights of all citizens are guaranteed under Islamic law.

The head of the Taliban delegation, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, told the more than 20 assembled special envoys and UN officials at the opening session that diplomats should “find ways of interaction and understanding rather than confrontation”, despite “natural” differences in policy.

 ‘Engaging constructively’ 

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is keen on engaging constructively with Western nations as well,” Mujahid said.

“Like any sovereign state, we uphold certain religious and cultural values and public aspirations that must be acknowledged,” he added.

Mujahid also pressed to end sanctions, saying Afghans are “being ganged up on”.

The Taliban government spokesman questioned whether ongoing sanctions were “fair practice” after “wars and insecurity for almost half a century as a result of foreign invasions and interference”.

Russia, which has maintained an embassy in Kabul, hinted it could drop its own sanctions, saying the group were the de facto authorities.

“We’ve been saying consistently that you have to recognise this fact and deal with them as such because, whether you like it or not, this movement is running the country now. You cannot simply ignore that,” said Russia’s envoy to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya.

DiCarlo said the issue of sanctions was “raised” but not discussed in depth.

“It’s a member-state issue whether they’re going to continue certain sanctions or not. The sanctions are on people, not on the country at large,” she said

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)