Female employees in Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul have been ordered to stay home, Kabul's interim mayor said, outlining the latest prohibitions on the country's women by the Taliban government.
Interim mayor Hamdullah Namony said that females working for the government must remain in their residences while further policies are being worked out, with work only permitted for those who can't be replaced by men, The Associated Press reported.
A final decision with regards women employees at the capital city's municipal departments is currently pending and a wage would still be released, Namony said.
During in a news conference Sunday, the interim mayor disclosed before the Taliban took control of Afghanistan last month, only one-third of Kabul's 3,000 workforce were females. Namony did not give an exact figure on the actual number of workers across Kabul will be forced to stay home.
According to The Guardian, the ruling to prevent most women workers of the city from reporting back to their jobs is another clear indication the insurgents are imposing their harsh interpretation of the Sharia Law despite earlier promises by some Taliban leaders that they would be more tolerant and inclusive.
The Taliban said they would respect the rights of women, but women in Afghanistan remain doubtful and scared. For instance, last week alone, the Taliban ordered boys to return to school, but not girls.
The Taliban has permitted women to attend universities but maintaining distance in gender-segregated settings from their male counterparts in the classroom with orders for women to wear Islamic dress.
The new Taliban government's latest directive is just among many in the last few days stripping back the rights of women and girls, NPR reported.
"We don't know what will happen next," Pashtana Durrani, founder and executive director of LEARN, said in quotes by Weekend Edition. LEARN is a not-for-profit group that focuses on women's education in Afghanistan.
The Taliban shut down Friday the women's ministry of affairs, replacing it with a ministry for what the new government calls "propagation of virtue and prevention of vice" whose main objective is to enforce Islamic law.
The Taliban have tried to project themselves as "guarantors of national security," in the hope this move will enable them to win the hearts of the public still widely suspicious of their intentions. Under the previous regime, an increase in violence and crime had been a major concern for ordinary Afghan citizens.
