How The Taliban’s New Burqa Order Threatens Economic And Workplace Progress For Afghanistan’s Women

Afghanistan’s Taliban government has ordered women to cover their faces in public in a return to a signature policy of their past rule and an escalation of restrictions on women’s participation in society. The decree, issued by the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice—which replaced the Ministry of Women’s Affairs—states that if a woman does not cover her face outside the home, her father or closest male relative will be warned, fined, and can eventually face potential prison or firing from state jobs.

Taliban officials are positioning this new order as a return to “tradition,” suggesting that Afghan women don the same blue burqa that was obligatory for women in public during the Taliban’s previous rule from 1996 to 2001. But women’s rights activists and female entrepreneurs in the region are saying the order will further undo the two decades of economic and educational progress for Afghan women.

“One needs to understand that the Taliban has nothing left to ban,” Pashtana Dorani, an Afghan activist and entrepreneur, told Forbes. “And they are doing anything and everything to grasp the world’s attention, since they know that is the only way they can stay relevant,” she says.

Since the reinstatement of Taliban rule in 2021, women and girls over the age of 12 have been banned from schools, required to travel outside the home with a male chaperone, and restricted from visiting parks with men. Female government employees have been told not to return to work until officials prepare “a new plan.” Taxi drivers have been advised not to offer services to women who do not follow the prescribed Islamic dress code, and women in most parts of the nation can no longer participate in sports.

Women are unable to travel alone, and in some instances, female activists have had their passports revoked, says Dorani. She also says some female-owned businesses have been shut down.

“Where women’s rights are constrained, everyone is diminished.”

Dorani is the Executive Director of LEARN, an Afghanistan-based non-profit organization dedicated to providing quality education to children in conflict zones, and especially – in light of the Taliban’s restrictions– Afghan girls. At the moment, LEARN has 400 students enrolled in its free online courses for grades 1 through 12.

“It is sad to see the length at which the Taliban will go to make Afghan women suffer for political gain while their own daughters are still able to go to school,” Dorani said. (Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told Piers Morgan last week that his daughters still receive an education.)

Before the reinstatement of the de facto Taliban rule in 2021, millions of Afghan women and girls were enrolled in education, and schools and universities employed nearly 80,000 female instructors, according to data from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Overall, of the nearly 400,000 Afghan civil servants, more than 100,000 were women.

“All in all, upholding the human rights of Afghan women (as well as those of children and ethnic and religious minorities) is an issue not only of human rights, but also of sound economics,” the UNDP report states.

“A quarter of the 352 Parliamentarians, some 4,000 women police, 800 attorneys, 300 judges, 242 prosecutors, 13 women ministers, and eight deputy governors are now gone,” Abdallah Aldardari, Resident Representative of UNDP Afghanistan, told Forbes. “In August 2021, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs was abolished, and National Human Rights Institute was dissolved, leaving no legal or judiciary systems for women within formal institutions. The media also suffered disproportionately, with 40% of Afghan media closed and 80% of women journalists reported to have lost their jobs.”

Thousands of others had built thriving businesses: The Afghanistan Women’s Chamber of Commerce in March 2021 released an analysis detailing that there were over 50,000 women-owned businesses in the nation. The Chamber found that the 17,369 licensed businesses it reviewed created more than 129,000 jobs, over three-quarters of which were held by women. This proportion is over three times the 21.8% female workforce participation rate for Afghanistan documented by the World Bank in 2020.

“Where women’s rights are constrained, everyone is diminished,” Sima Bahous, UN Women Executive Director, told Forbes over email. “The latest directive by the Taliban is a further escalation of restrictions on women and girls, including impeded return to work and inability to pursue their education.”

In addition to the burqa order, it has been reported that women in some regions of Afghanistan are unable to drive or take public transportation. “Such constraints increasingly limit women’s ability to earn a living, access health care and education, seek protection, escape situations of violence, exercise their individual and collective rights, and act with agency,” Bahous said.

Afghanistan was one of the world’s poorest nations before the Taliban regained power last year, ranking 169 out of 189 in the Human Development Index and 157 out of 162 in the Gender Equality Index. “The de facto Taliban ruling since August 2021 has further aggravated already high levels of inequality in reproductive health, women’s empowerment, and economic activity,” Aldardari says.

According to the UNDP, current restrictions on women’s employment have been estimated to result in an immediate economic loss of up to $1 billion USD, or up to 5% of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product. This figure is likely to increase with time, the report notes, the longer girls are kept from learning. The rate of return on education for Afghan females has been estimated to be more than double that for males.

The International Labor Organization estimates total job losses in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over are expected to be 900,000 by the middle of 2022. Female employment levels are projected to decrease by 21% by mid-2022 compared to levels taken before the Taliban regained power.

“The exclusion of women and girls from the public,” says Aldardari, “is a path Afghanistan cannot afford to take.”