The despair of Afghan women by closing the halls

Shirin had appointed her bride's term weeks earlier, but instead of relaxing as the entouragers prepared her at a beauty salon in Kabul, the atmosphere was tense as everyone stood in high readiness to hide the bride if the police appeared.

Shirin was the last customer in a salon in Afghanistan's capital, one of thousands of closed salons throughout the country on Tuesday at the order of the Taliban authorities.

I've got someone who's guarding the outside in case the Taliban come. If something happens, we'll put it [usen] in the bathroom or storage room and we'll look busy packing”, said the living room owner, Asia.

Even if they put me in jail, I'll give him the makeup because I promised him”

While some of the Esthetists were involved in the Shirin, others were busy packing the salon.

Like tens of thousands of their colleagues, these workers found themselves removed from one of the few fields of work that were available to women under the Taliban government.

The ban on beauty salons represents a great loss for women in this country, affecting not only their financial independence, since the owners and servants of the salons often contributed to the only income for their families but also their social interactions and life.

It broke our hearts when we heard that the halls were closing, because they were places where we not only cared for our looks, but we could see friends and create new friendships, talk and ease our suffering”, said 21-year-old Bahara, a customer at a cabul salon.

“Grat is not allowed to enter entertainment sites, so what can we do? Where can we go to enjoy ourselves? Where can we meet?

Since their return to power in August 2021, Taliban authorities have implemented a series of restrictive measures against girls and women.

They have been forbidden to attend high school and university, banned from visiting parks, entertainment fairs, and gyms, and ordered to be covered in public.

Furthermore, women have faced major obstacles even in their professional lives. Many have been prevented from working for the United Nations Organisation (OKB) or for nongovernmental organisations, and a significant number have lost their jobs in government or have been offered financial incentives to stay home instead of pursue a career.

All the doors are locked.

A year ago, Camille started working in a beauty salon after losing her former job in the media and had to stop schooling.

As the sole holder of her five-member family, 19-year-old is now uncertain about its future without the income she earns from beauty salons.

“The closing of beauty salons means that all doors are closed to me, which means I can't work and live as a woman in Afghanistan”, she told the AFP news agency this week, while combing the long black hair of one of the last guests in the salon.

Maybe tomorrow the Taliban mean women aren't allowed to breathe”.

Manizha, 28, invested time and money to create her own salon since 2018.

She trained about 200 women, empowering and empowering them to work in this industry.

Now its 25 current employees, all top income providers in their families, are back to zero, and Maniza has to see how her efforts were wasted.

I've worked so hard, and now my achievements don't mean anything”, she said. I stood by and paid government taxes and now they're closing our beauty salon. It's really depressing; this decision has dealt a massive blow to the country's economy, and to us”.

In the last few days before the order to shut down the living room went into effect, women rushed into the salons to paint their hair and fix their eyebrows, seeing as their last opportunity to do something for themselves.

The Ministry for the Promoting of Virtue said that the excessive expenses of women making them in the lobby caused difficulties for poor families and that some beauty treatments, such as the extension of eyelids and hairs, are considered incompatible with Islamic Islam.

However, Estestist Nayla believes that her work was a noble and ethical way to make a living.

I was doing good work, earning little to support my family. What am I going to do now?

What do they really want from us? They've closed all places for women. Maybe one day they'll just say, once a girl is born, bury her alive. / REL