Taliban ban women from parks and gyms in Kabul

The Taliban have banned women from entering Kabul’s parks and gyms, accusing them of breaking Islamic laws in the capital.

A spokesman from the vice and virtue ministry said that Afghans managing the city’s parks, gyms and fairgrounds had been ordered to turn women away, including those with male chaperones.

The Taliban had been enforcing gender segregation rules that gave women access to parks on three days a week — Sunday, Monday and Tuesday — while men were allowed to visit on the remaining four days.

“For the past 15 months, we tried our best to arrange and sort it out and even specified the days,” Mohammad Akif, the ministry’s spokesman, said. “But still, in some places — in fact, we must say in many places — the rules were violated.”

The ban is the latest draconian restriction on women’s rights and freedoms, including preventing women from travelling long distances without a male escort, restricting access to some fields of employment, and enforcing the hijab or burqa outside the home.

Girls also continue to be blocked from entering secondary schools, which have been closed to them across most of the country since the Taliban regained power in August last year.

Akif confirmed that the restrictions across Kabul’s parks and gyms would extend to all women “whether they are with or without a mahram [male escort].”

He added: “We have seen both men and women together in parks and, unfortunately, the hijab was not observed. So we had to come up with another decision and for now we ordered all parks and gyms to be closed for women.”

Taliban teams will begin monitoring areas and establishments to check if women are still using them.

A female personal trainer said that women and men were not exercising or training together at the Kabul gym where she works.

“The Taliban are lying,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “We were training separately.”

She said that two men claiming to be from the virtue and vice ministry entered her gym and made all the women leave. “The women wanted to protest about the gyms [closing] but the Taliban came and arrested them,” she added. “Now we don’t know if they’re alive or dead.”

Khalid Zadran, the Taliban-appointed spokesman for Kabul’s police chief, said that he had no immediate information about women protesting against gym closures or arrests.

Alison Davidian, the UN special representative in Afghanistan for women, condemned the ban. “This is yet another example of the Taliban’s continued and systematic erasure of women from public life,” she said. “We call on the Taliban to reinstate all rights and freedoms for women and girls.”

Sodaba Nazhand, a Kabul-based women’s rights activist, said the bans would leave many women wondering what was left for them in Afghanistan.

“It is not just a restriction for women, but also for children,” she said. “Children go to a park with their mothers, now children are also prevented from going to the park. It’s so sad and unfair.”