KABUL: The Taliban have imposed a new restriction on women by banning their entry without a male guardian (mahram) into a joint border market established between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, according to local and international media reports.
The market is located in Hairatan, a border area of Afghanistan’s northern Balkh province, and serves as a shared commercial and public space for people from both countries. It has traditionally been frequented by a large number of women for shopping, trade, and travel-related purposes.
Under the new directive, Taliban security personnel stationed at the market have begun preventing women from entering unless they are accompanied by a male guardian. Eyewitnesses reported that women arriving alone are being turned away at entry points.
Reports further indicate that even women accompanied by men are being stopped and asked to provide documentary proof confirming that the accompanying male is a legitimate mahram. In cases where such proof is not presented, both the women and the men are denied access to the market.
Taliban members have been charged by local inhabitants with maltreatment and making them feel small, especially in the case of men who were with the women. Sometimes, some of the people who lived there remarked that the Afghans’ treatment at the border market was harsher than that of the Uzbeks.
This Afghan man from the locality told the reporters that the people who try to go to the market or cross the border are often subjected to multiple checks, pressure and humiliation.
The locals pointed out that the majority of women who come to the market are aged and many of them go to Uzbekistan and Russia for medical reasons thus, the prohibition is especially hard for them.
Taliban officials have not yet provided any official account or thorough explanation regarding the policy or its legal grounding. The latest incident has once more brought to the fore the issue of the increasing restrictions on women’s freedom of movement and access to public spaces in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
