The Taliban leader's latest decree to shut down beauty salons across Afghanistan has been met with wide-ranging reactions from international bodies and organisations.
The UN agencies, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch warned that the decision would have negative consequences.
The UN Women Afghanistan called the closure of women's beauty salons the latest “crackdown on women rights, women’s entrepreneurship and job opportunities”.
The UN office stated that women must be a part of the economy for any country to chart a sustainable way out of crisis and improve development outcomes.
Also, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) called on the Taliban to halt the edict calling for closure of beauty salons.
According to UNAMA, which is chaired by a woman in Afghanistan, the new restrictions on women’s rights will have a negative impact on the Afghan economy and contradicts the Taliban’s stated support for women’s entrepreneurship.
UNAMA added that the organisation remains engaged with other stakeholders to reverse the bans on Afghan women.
Meanwhile, Heather Bar, Associate director of women’s rights at Human Rights Watch in response to the Taliban’s decision on banning beauty salons in Afghanistan, said that the Taliban officials spend all day trying to think of spaces that remain open for women to crush them.
Also, Samira Hamidi, a human rights activist, and Amnesty International campaigner, said that the Taliban continue to repress Afghan women justifying it as Islamic law.
According to Hamidi, closing women's beauty salons proves that the Taliban consider women as their "enemy” and stressed that she is concerned that one day the Taliban will not allow women to visit hospitals too.
The Ministry Vice and Virtue of the Taliban recently asked the municipalities of the group across Afghanistan to close all women’s beauty salons on a one-month notice.
The ministry wrote in a letter addressed to the municipalities that they issued the order to ban the beauty salons based on the "verbal" decree of Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, the leader of the Taliban.
The Taliban have previously banned Afghan women from the right to work and education, visiting parks, and restaurants, stadiums, and sports clubs.
