The Taliban’s vice and virtue directorate in Kandahar has ordered shopkeepers to sell women’s clothing, beauty products and other personal items only to customers wearing the all-encompassing burqa, further tightening restrictions on women’s freedoms, according to local sources.
The directive, issued by the Taliban’s directorate for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, bars merchants from selling such items to women in what the Taliban call “ordinary hijab.” Shopkeepers who disobey face fines or imprisonment, the sources said.
Patrols of Taliban enforcers have been monitoring women’s markets in Kandahar for the past week, warning vendors not to admit female customers into their shops. Instead, women must wait outside to receive their purchases, residents said.
Kandahar, the Taliban’s birthplace and power center, has often been the testing ground for their most restrictive policies. Local sources said similar measures were enforced earlier this month in Khost Province, where shops selling women’s goods were shut down.
Rights advocates say the restrictions are part of a broader pattern of curbs on women’s freedoms since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, including bans on girls’ education, most forms of employment and participation in public life.
