Afghanistan: Taliban bans women from accessing parks, gyms
This photograph taken on November 9, 2022, shows Taliban guards standing next to a ferry wheel ride at the Habibullah Zazai Park on the outskirts of Kabul. The Taliban have banned Afghan women from entering the capital's public parks and funfairs, just months after ordering access to be segregated by gender.
What you need to know:
- Taliban has banned women from accessing parks and gyms in the country’s capital, Kabul.
- This is the latest limitation on Afghan women’s participation in the country’s public life after the militant group seized the government in August 2021.
Taliban has banned women from accessing parks and gyms in the country’s capital, Kabul.
According to the group, people were still not following Islamic laws despite attempts at gender segregation in the parks and gyms.
"We have seen both men and women together in parks and, unfortunately, the hijab was not observed. So, we had to come up with another decision and for now, we ordered all parks and gyms to be closed for women,’’ Mohammed Akif, spokesman for the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, told the BBC.
This is the latest limitation on Afghan women’s participation in the country’s public life after the militant group seized the government in August 2021.
Earlier this year, the Taliban prohibited women in northern Afghanistan from using communal bath houses.
Women’s rights
The militant group also shut down girls’ secondary schools, ordered women to wear hijabs at work, and prohibited women from travelling long distances without a male chaperone.
Despite numerous calls, by the international community including the United Nations, for the Islamist group to stop repressing women’s rights, the Taliban has only gotten more brazen in insisting on following Sharia laws.
Kabul-based women's rights activist Sodaba Nazhand, said the bans on gyms, parks, work, and school would leave many women wondering what was left for them in Afghanistan.
