RASC News Agency: In a newly published report, the international human rights organization Global Issue has condemned the Taliban for perceiving women’s cosmetics as a threat to their rule. The group’s findings reveal a systematic effort by the Taliban to eliminate symbols of female identity and autonomy through home invasions and the confiscation of personal belongings. Following the official closure of all beauty salons across Afghanistan, Taliban enforcers have reportedly begun inspecting private homes suspected of clandestinely offering beauty services to women. These intrusions, led by agents of the Taliban’s so-called Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, are part of a wider campaign to suppress women’s presence in the public and private spheres.
According to sources cited in the report, Taliban agents in Sar-e-Pul province raided multiple homes in February of this year, seizing all cosmetic products and issuing direct threats to the occupants. Such actions reflect an alarming expansion of the regime’s surveillance state into even the most intimate corners of civilian life. The report underscores the symbolic importance of cosmetics for many Afghanistani women, who, under the weight of oppressive restrictions, use makeup not merely for adornment but as a vital expression of identity, self-worth, and psychological resilience even if only within the confines of their homes.
Global Issue notes that the Taliban’s targeting of cosmetics represents more than a mere cultural or religious imposition; it is a strategic effort to erase women’s agency. “The Taliban perceive women as a fundamental challenge to their vision of social order,” the report states. “Even the simplest use of makeup is interpreted as an act of defiance an assertion of individuality that must be extinguished.” The organization further warns that this trajectory could result in the total collapse of women’s privacy in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, it emphasizes the quiet but unyielding resistance among Afghanistani women, many of whom continue to hold on to their dreams, values, and dignity despite an atmosphere of systemic repression.
“Even under a regime built on fear,” the report concludes, “Afghanistani women remain a symbol of courage refusing to surrender their sense of self, their aspirations, and the belief in a future where they can live freely.”
