Ekeomah Atuonwu
Taliban officials in Afghanistan’s most progressive city have told driving instructors to stop issuing licences to women, professionals from the sector told journalists.
While Afghanistan is a deeply conservative, patriarchal country, it is not uncommon for women to drive in larger cities –- particularly Herat in the northwest, which has long been considered liberal by Afghan standards.
“We have been verbally instructed to stop issuing licenses to women drivers … but not directed to stop women from driving in the city,” said Jan Agha Achakzai, the head of Herat’s Traffic Management Institute that oversees driving schools.
Adila Adeel, a 29-year-old woman driving instructor who owns a training institute said the Taliban want to ensure that the next generation will not have the same opportunities as their mothers.
“We were told not to offer driving lessons and not to issue licenses,” she said.
“I personally told a Taliban (guard) that it’s more comfortable for me to travel in my car than sit beside a taxi driver,” said Shaima Wafa as she drove to a local market to buy Eid al-Fitr gifts for her family.
“I need to be able to take my family to a doctor in my car without waiting for my brother or husband to come home,” she said.
The insurgents-turned-rulers seized back control of the country in August last year, promising a softer rule than their last stint in power between 1996 and 2001, which was dominated by human rights abuses.
AEM reported that the Taliban have increasingly restricted the rights of Afghans, particularly girls and women who have been prevented from returning to secondary school and many government jobs,
The Taliban have largely refrained from issuing national, written decrees, instead allowing local authorities to issue their own edicts, sometimes verbally.
