Kabul’s new mayor orders female employees to stay at home

The new mayor of Kabul has instructed female officials to stay home and not come to work unless their duties can be performed by a male colleague. The capital’s interim mayor belongs to the Taliban, the extremist group that occupied Afghanistan last month.

According to Mayor Hamdallah Noaman, “It is essential that women be temporarily unemployed.” The city has about three thousand female city employees. According to Numan, some women are allowed to continue working, for example the workers who clean women’s toilets in Kabul.

It means that the Taliban are once again restricting Afghan women, despite earlier promises to respect their freedoms and rights “within the framework of Islamic law.” Yesterday it became clear that the group is also responsible for managing women’s affairs in Kabul. close. The building now houses the Ministry of Virtue. The female employees are said to have been sent home in recent weeks.

demonstration again

Dozens of women demonstrated today outside the ministry building. They demand that women be allowed to participate in public life. “A society in which women do not participate is a dead society,” reads their billboards. The demonstration lasted ten minutes and took place under the watchful eyes of the Taliban.

This is not the first time Afghan women have taken to the streets since seizing power. Demonstrations are often crushed with a heavy hand. However, the women continue to demonstrate – they are outraged by the group’s restrictive policies on women’s rights.

Education is prohibited

Earlier this week, girls in secondary education were banned from returning to school for the time being, while male classmates were allowed to return. Female students still study, but in separate classes and with a mandatory face covering.

When the Taliban took power in the 1990s, they banned girls and women from going to school. In addition, women were not allowed to work outside the home. Women’s rights activists fear that the group will pursue such a policy again.