Taliban morality police have been raiding homes in parts of the Afghan capital to shut down in-home beauty salons, destroying equipment and threatening female beauticians and their families with arrest, residents told Afghanistan International.
Nadia (name changed), a resident of Kabul’s District 4, said Thursday that running a beauty salon from her home had been her family’s sole source of income for more than two years.
“I am the sole breadwinner of my family. I pay the rent, buy food, and cover my children’s expenses,” she said. “After the Taliban shut down beauty salons in the city, I moved my work home, but now they say even working from home is haram and I must stop.”
According to Nadia, Taliban enforcers threatened to imprison her husband if she continued. The pressure, she said, has sparked domestic violence. “My husband was terrified. He said we had to go back to our native province. But our financial situation is so bad, I refused. He became angry, took our daughters to the village, and threatened to divorce me.”
The Taliban ordered the nationwide closure of women-run beauty salons in July 2023, a move that the Chamber of Commerce and Industries says left around 60,000 women jobless. Some women in Kabul and other provinces continued operating discreetly from their homes, but the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has barred such work, even inside private residences.
Humaira, a resident of the Ahmad Shah Baba area, said Taliban morality officers entered her home, smashed her salon equipment, and warned her to stop working.
“We live in a rented house, and my husband is sick. If I don’t work, who will pay the rent and buy milk for my baby?” she asked.
Earlier reports from Sar-e-Pul province indicated that Taliban forces had conducted house-to-house inspections to close down in-home salons operated by women.
