The Taliban have this week banned access to parks and gyms for women in Afghanistan. It is the latest decree by the regime to curtail women's rights and freedoms since they took power more than a year ago.
Since they took over Kabul in August 2021, and despite initial promises, the Taliban have been limiting women's rights. They have banned girls from attending secondary school, restricted women from most professional areas, and ordered them to wear head-to-toe covers in public spaces.
The recent ban on access to parks and gyms has been implemented because citizens were ignoring gender segregation orders and women were not wearing the required hijab, according to a spokesman for the Ministry of Virtue and Vice, Mohammed Akef Mohajer.
"When a mother comes with her children, they should be allowed to enter the park, because these children have not seen anything good...they should play and be entertained," Kabul resident Masooma, who was banned, told Reuters. access an amusement park where he had planned to take his grandson. "I insisted a lot, but they did not allow us to enter the park, and now we are going home," she added.
Two park operators, who asked to remain anonymous, said they had been told by Taliban officials not to allow women into their parks.
The Ministry spokesman assured that the government had "done everything possible" in the last 15 months to avoid the closure of parks and gyms for women: to impose gender segregation. "But unfortunately the orders were not obeyed and the rules were broken, and we had to close parks and gyms for women," Moahjer said. The Taliban will begin to monitor these establishments to ensure that women do not use them, according to the spokesman.
The Taliban have tried to impose their extremist interpretation of Islamic law since they took over Afghanistan, but some women in urban centers ignore the rule and have been allowed to work in government offices.
Hardliners, represented by spokesman Bilal Karimi, declined to comment but appear to influence the regime's administration, which is struggling to govern and remains isolated internationally.
For now, Western governments have ensured that the Taliban government would have to reverse its course on women's rights to achieve any formal recognition. And as the flow of foreign aid has dwindled, the economic downturn has plunged millions more Afghans into poverty and hunger.
