UNAMA Concerned About New Restrictions on Women in Afghanistan

In the face of such severe restrictions against women in the country, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) argued that "all Afghans' rights must be respected."

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The mission, through its official Twitter account, showed its deep concern over "recent Taliban officials' statements & mounting on-the-ground reports of women being prevented from using parks, gyms, and baths."

"All the Afghans' rights must be respected, especially women's access to all forms of public life and girls' right to education," said UNAMA.

According to the spokesman for the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Mohammad Akif Sadeq Mohajir, the new restrictions are because "in many places, the rules were violated."

"There was mixing and the hijab [head and neck covering veil] was not respected. That's why this decision was made," the spokesman said. Until now, men and women have had separate times and days so as not to cross paths. 

This new restriction on Afghan women is in addition to the already established ban on travel without a male escort, the obligation to wear the hijab whenever they leave the house, and the ban on access to secondary education.

The Taliban seized power in August 2021 ending twenty years of armed conflict and imposing a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.