UN concerned by Taliban’s arrest of Afghan women and girls for dress code violations

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ISLAMABAD (AP) — The United Nations on Monday expressed concern about the Taliban’s arrest of Afghan women and girls for their alleged failure to comply with the authorities’ dress code.

In May 2022, the Taliban government issued a decree calling for women to show only their eyes and recommending they wear a head-to-toe burqa. The Taliban, which returned to power in 2021, has cracked down on the way women dress and behave in public, notably through morality laws forbidding them to show their faces outside the home.

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan said it was concerned by the arrest of “numerous” women and girls in Kabul between July 16 and 19, who authorities claimed had not followed instructions on wearing the hijab, or the Islamic headscarf.

“These incidents serve to further isolate women and girls, contribute to a climate of fear, and erode public trust,” the mission added, without details including the number of arrests or the ages and where they have been held.

The U.N. mission urged the Taliban government to “ rescind policies and practices ” that restrict women and girls’ human rights and fundamental freedoms, particularly the ban on education beyond sixth grade.

A Taliban representative was not immediately available for comment.

In January 2024, the country's Vice and Virtue Ministry said it had arrested women in the Afghan capital for wearing “bad hijab.” A ministry spokesman, Abdul Ghafar Farooq, did not say how many women were arrested or what constituted bad hijab.

The U.N. mission said at the time it was looking into claims of ill treatment of the women and extortion in exchange for their release.

The Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021 following the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces. Since then, the Taliban administration has sought international recognition while enforcing its interpretation of Islamic law. In July, Russia became the only country to grant formal recognition.