Female Afghans told to stay home

Taliban restrict women working in Kabul city government

KABUL, Afghanistan — Female employees in the city government of the Afghan capital have been told to stay home, with work only allowed for those who cannot be replaced by men, the interim mayor of Kabul said Sunday in announcing the latest restrictions by the nation’s Taliban rulers.

Elsewhere, witnesses said an explosion targeted a Taliban vehicle in the eastern city of Jalalabad. Hospital officials said five people were killed in the attack, the second in as many days in the Islamic State stronghold.

Hamdullah Namony, Kabul’s interim mayor, said that before the Taliban takeover last month, just under one-third of the nearly 3,000 city employees were women and that they had worked in all departments.

Namony said the female employees have been ordered to stay home, pending a further decision. He said exceptions were made for women who could not be replaced by men, including some in the design and engineering departments and the attendants of public toilets for women. Namony did not say how many female employees were forced to stay home.

“There are some areas that men can’t do it, [and] we have to ask our female staff to fulfill their duties; there is no alternative for it,” Namony said at a news conference, his first since being appointed by the Taliban.

The decision to prevent most female city workers from returning to their jobs marks another sign that the Taliban, who overran Kabul last month, are enforcing their harsh interpretation of Islam despite initial promises by some that they would be more tolerant and inclusive. In their previous rule in the 1990s, the Taliban had barred girls and women from schools, jobs and public life.

Across Afghanistan, women in many areas have been told to stay home from jobs, both in the public and private sectors. However, the Taliban have not yet announced a uniform policy.

The comments by the Kabul mayor were unusually specific and affected a large female workforce that had been involved in running a city of more than 5 million people.

In recent days, the new Taliban government has issued several decrees rolling back the rights of girls and women. It told female students in middle school and high school that they could not return for the time being, while boys in those grades resumed studies over the weekend. Female university students were informed that studies will take place in gender-segregated settings and that they must abide by a strict Islamic dress code.

On Friday, the Taliban shut down the Women’s Affairs Ministry, replacing it with a ministry for the “propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice.”

On Sunday, about a dozen women staged a protest outside the ministry, holding up signs calling for the participation of women in public life. “A society in which women are not active is dead society,” one sign read.

The protest lasted about 10 minutes. After a short verbal confrontation with a man, the women got into cars and left, as Taliban members in two cars observed from nearby.

Elsewhere, about 30 women held a news conference in the basement of a home tucked away in a Kabul neighborhood. Marzia Ahmadi, a rights activist and government employee now forced to sit at home, said they would demand that the Taliban reopen public spaces to women.

“It’s our right,” she said. “We want to talk to them. We want to tell them that we have the same rights as they have.”

But most of the participants also said they would try to leave the country if they had an opportunity.

The explosion Sunday in Jalalabad was the second attack in two days to target the Taliban. Hospital officials in Jalalabad said they received the bodies of five people killed in the explosion.

Among the dead were two civilians, including a child.

According to witnesses, the three others were in the targeted border police vehicle and were believed to be members of the Taliban.

On Saturday, three explosions targeted Taliban vehicles in Jalalabad, killing three people and wounding 20, witnesses said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The Taliban have tried to present themselves as guarantors of security, in hopes that this will win them support from a public still widely suspicious of their intentions.

The decision to prevent most female city workers from returning to their jobs marks another sign that the Taliban, who overran Kabul last month, are enforcing their harsh interpretation of Islam despite initial promises by some that they would be more tolerant and inclusive.