How the Taliban Erase Women: The Long List of Bans imposed in Afghanistan

"The Taliban hate women because they are afraid of them," a girl who landed in the United States in the days of the Great Escape told Sky news with conviction. "The love of poetry and the chains of six years of slavery of the Taliban era, which had tied my legs, meant that, leaning on my pen and limping, I composed steps and entered the territory of poetry," he wrote in 2006 the poet Nadia Anjuman. Certainly, today as yesterday, they have violently and methodically restricted the living space of the Afghan women.

There is not an exhaustive list of prohibitions, a guide that collects the worst that these misogynistic and bearded fighters inflict on women. The only way to discover the many prohibitions to which they are subjected is to fish among the news published in the last month, including the chronicles of exemplary punishments in the square. Here is a sample of the new course that catapults the country back centuries, sending women to the last, very slippery step of the social ladder. A synthesis that offers ideas of a certain importance to willing psychiatrists and to that political class that, at different latitudes, imagines building a dialogue with the Taliban.

1) Prohibition for women to work outside the home, which also applies to teachers, engineers and most professionals. Only some female doctors and nurses are allowed to operate in some hospitals in Kabul. 2) Forbid outdoor activities unless accompanied by a mah-ram (close relative such as a father, brother or husband). 3) It is forbidden to deal with male shopkeepers and to be visited by male doctors. 4) Ban on studying in schools, universities or other educational institutions: the Taliban have converted schools for girls into religious seminaries. 5) Obligation for women to wear a long veil (Burqa) that covers them from head to toe. 6) Whipping, beating and verbal violence are foreseen for women not dressed according to the Taliban rules or for women not accompanied by a mah-ram. 7) Whipping in public for those who do not have their ankles covered. 8) Stoning for women accused of having sexual relations outside of marriage. 9) Impossible to use cosmetics (some with nail polish had their fingers cut off). 10) Forbidden to speak or shake hands with non-mah-ram men. 11) Laughing out loud is forbidden. 12) Prohibition to wear high heels because it generates a sound while walking. 13) Taxi forbidden to women without a mah-ram. 14) Prohibition to be present on radio, television, or public meetings of any kind. 15) Prohibition to play sports or to enter a sports center or club. 16) It is forbidden to ride a bicycle or motorbike even with mah-ram. 17) They cannot wear brightly colored clothes: for the Taliban these are sexually attractive colors. 18) They cannot meet each other on festive occasions or for recreational purposes. 19) Prohibition for women to wash clothes near rivers or in public places. 20) One of the most disturbing prohibitions because it is as if it erases the existence of the woman: changing the names that include the word woman. 21) Prohibition to appear on the balconies of their houses. 22) It is mandatory to darken all the windows of the houses to prevent women from being seen from outside. 23) Prohibition for tailors to take measurements for women or to sew women's clothes. 24) Eliminated female public toilets. 25) Prohibition for men and women to travel on the same buses. Two categories have been created: only for men or only for women. 26) Wide pants prohibited even under a burqa. 27) Prohibition for women to photograph or film. 28) It is not even possible to take pictures of women to publish them in newspapers and books or simply to hang them on the walls of houses and shops.