Biden’s Afghanistan: Taliban Bans Windows Near Places ‘Used by Women’

The Taliban terrorist organization running Afghanistan published a decree this weekend banning buildings from having windows overlooking places “used by women,” a measure to protect Afghans from potentially seeing a woman inside her own home.

Since conquering Afghanistan in 2021 – the result of outgoing President Joe Biden violating an agreement brokered by President-elect Donald Trump to remove U.S. troops from the country by May 2021 – Taliban jihadists have endeavored to erase women from all aspects of Afghan life, public and private. While initially promising the free world that it would construct an “inclusive” government to replace the U.S.-backed regime that collapsed, the Taliban rapidly began implementing measures such as banning girls and women from post-primary education, ordering them never to leave their homes unless “necessary,” and, more recently, banning them from speaking at audible volumes.

The brutal repression of girls and women was a cornerstone of the first Taliban regime, toppled after the September 2001 al-Qaeda attacks, and was among the first major policy shifts to return under the Taliban’s fundamentalist interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law.

The window decree, published on social media on Saturday, expands what was initially the erasure of women from public life into the erasure of women in private. “Supreme leader” Hibatullah Akhundzada reportedly imposed the rule because it was necessary to protect Afghans from potentially seeing the existence of women through their windows. Conversely, the decree also makes it impossible for many women, already banned from leaving their homes, to see the outside world through their windows, assuming the windows that look out into neighbors’ kitchens do so through a window on that home, as well.

“Seeing women working in kitchens, in courtyards or collecting water from wells can lead to obscene acts,” the decree read in part, according to a translation by the Agence France-Presse (AFP).

 

The degree proscribes that any new buildings constructed in Afghanistan must not have windows that look out to their neighbors’ “courtyard, kitchen, neighbor’s [water] well and other places usually used by women.” All existing buildings were commanded to adjust to the new ruling by building walls or other barriers to “eliminate the harm” caused by the view from windows that may look out into a place where a woman may potentially exist.

Radical Islamist clerics in support of the Taliban applauded the measure, according to the Afghan news agency Tolo News. Tolo News’ coverage has taken on a marked pro-Taliban stance since the terrorists raided its headquarters the day after taking over Kabul in 2021.

“This decree is a good initiative because in Kabul, especially in urban areas, tall buildings often cause religious and social discomfort to the people living in the lower buildings,” a cleric identified as Haseebullah Hanafi told Tolo News.

Tolo reported that “religious scholars” “welcomed” the decree as it was necessary for “preventing potential harm to women,” without elaborating.

In addition to measures ensuring no one accidentally sees a woman, the Taliban announced this weekend it would ban any non-governmental organization employing women. The Taliban has already outlawed women from most fields of work, including Afghan women helping in pivotal humanitarian aid efforts with the United Nations. This decree was published by the Taliban “Economy Ministry,” ordering an end to the employment of Afghan women.

“In case of lack of cooperation, all activities of that institution will be canceled and the activity license of that institution, granted by the ministry, will also be canceled,” the decree read.

Some NGOs are reportedly attempting to circumvent the decree through work-from-home measures and other provisions. The Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief and Development (ACBAR), a humanitarian NGO, reportedly said that the Taliban had greenlit the employment of women working in health and education, as well as those working from home. The exiled Afghan newspaper Etilaatroz reported that ACBAR emphasized that women working for them must studiously follow the Taliban’s edicts on covering their heads and faces as well as ensure they are accompanied by a male chaperone.

“Akbar added that the offices should have separate entrance, rest and prayer rooms for female employees, and that the presence of female employees in the offices should be justified,” Etilaatroz reported. “According to the organization, these justifications are necessary in the event of sudden Taliban visits to the offices.”

Previously, the Taliban’s “Ministry of Vice and Virtue” issued decrees this year banning women from showing their faces “due to the fear of causing temptation” in public or praying too loudly.

 

“The loud voice of women is also considered a part of their modesty,” Tolo News explained at the time. “The law also states that it is prohibited for drivers to transport adult women without a legal male guardian.”

“It is very bad to see women in some areas, and our scholars also agree that women’s faces should be hidden,” Ministry of Vice and Virtue spokesman Molvi Mohammad Sadiq Akif scolded in 2023. “It’s not that her face will be harmed or damaged. A woman has her own value and that value decreases by men looking at her.”

In November, to mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid published a list of the Taliban’s alleged women’s rights “achievements.” The list included claims that the Taliban had ensured that “around 20,000 (twenty thousand) women have been provided with inheritance, Mhar (dowry), and other fundamental rights, which were previously taken from them due to harmful customs, traditions, and baseless notions of honor or zeal in society.”

Mujahid also claimed the Taliban “prevented 5,000 marriages where women were forced marriage either under duress, in exchange for money, or against their will, and where underage girls were being married off to old men.” In reality, extensive evidence of the Taliban not only permitting forced marriages, but overturning the annulment of such marriages, exists.

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