Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities have ordered beauty salons across the nation to close within a month, according to the vice ministry on Tuesday, the latest restriction on women’s public life.
The decision will compel the closure of thousands of women-owned enterprises, which are frequently the sole source of income for families, and will ban one of the few remaining possibilities for them to socialize outside from home.
“I think it would have been good if women did not exist at all in this society,” said the manager of a Kabul parlour who asked not to be identified.
“I am saying this now: I wish I did not exist. I wish we were not born in Afghanistan, or were not from Afghanistan.”
Since assuming power in August 2021, the Taliban administration has outlawed girls and women from attending high schools and universities, as well as parks, funfairs, and gyms, and has required them to cover up in public.
Women have also been forbidden from working for the United Nations or non-governmental organizations, and many have been fired from government employment or are being paid to stay at home.
The order was issued for unknown reasons, according to Mohammad Sadeq Akif Muhajir, spokesman for the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
