UN Security Council to meet over Taliban order for women to cover faces

UN special envoy for Afghanistan to brief 15-member council on the escalation of restrictions

Zakia, an economics student who had to abandon her studies when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August, at her home in the capital Kabul, where women are coming together to stand against the hardline regime. All photos: AFP

She is part of a growing group that started with 15 activists, mostly women in their 20s who already knew each other. Now a network of dozens of women work in secret to organise protests.

Hoda Khamosh, a published poet and former NGO worker who organised workshops to help empower women, vets newcomers to the group to ensure they can be trusted.

One test she sets is to ask them to prepare banners or slogans at short notice - she can sense passion for the cause from women who deliver quickly.

Other tests yield even clearer results. Hoda says one potential recruit was given a fake date and time for a demonstration. The Taliban turned up ahead of the supposed protest, and all contact was cut with the woman suspected of tipping off officials.

A core group of the activists use a dedicated phone number to co-ordinate on the day of a protest. That number is later disconnected to ensure it is not being tracked.

"We usually carry an extra scarf or an extra dress. When the demonstration is over, we change our clothes so we cannot be recognised," says Hoda.

She has changed her phone number several times and her husband has received threats. "We could still be harmed, it's exhausting. But all we can do is persevere," she says.

The UN Security Council will meet on Thursday to discuss an order by Afghanistan's Taliban for women to cover their faces in public.

The Taliban announced the decree, made by its supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, in Kabul on Saturday. It said: “Those women who are not too old or young must cover their face, except the eyes, as per Sharia directives, in order to avoid provocation when meeting men who are not mahram [close male adult relatives]”.

It signifies a return to a signature policy of the Taliban's past hardline rule.

Deborah Lyons, the UN's special envoy for Afghanistan, is expected to brief the 15-member council on the escalation of restrictions, Norway's UN mission said.

The Norway mission requested the closed-door meeting "to address the increased restrictions on human rights and freedoms of girls and women".

Under Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, women were forced to cover their faces and could not work, while girls were banned from school.

After seizing power in August, the group promised to respect women's rights.

But in March, the Taliban backtracked on their announcement that high schools would open for girls, saying they would remain closed until a plan was drawn up for them to reopen.

Mr Akhundzada said if a woman did not cover her face outside home, her father or closest male relative would be visited and face the possibility of being jailed or fired from state jobs.

Most women in Afghanistan wear a headscarf for religious reasons, but many in urban areas such as Kabul do not cover their faces.