The Taliban’s Ministry of Moral Protection on Sunday ordered that visitors to amusement parks in the Afghan capital, Kabul, not be separated by gender, meaning families can no longer go to these facilities together.
According to the schedule published by the ministry, women will be able to visit parks in Kabul and surrounding areas with slides and rides from Sunday to Tuesday if they wear the Islamic headscarf (the veil that covers the face and body of Muslim women). Only men can enter the theme parks from Wednesday to Saturday.
The Taliban government imposes more and more restrictions on public life. Airlines were instructed, Thursday, not to allow women to travel on an unaccompanied plane in the future. Dozens of women were prevented from boarding an unaccompanied man at Kabul International Airport on Friday.
On Wednesday, the Taliban leadership extended the ban on girls’ secondary education until further measures, sparking protests from teachers, students and women’s rights activists in the country.
Several countries and international organizations called on the Taliban to reconsider its decision without delay. “Gender segregation in Afghanistan is escalating at an alarming rate,” Heather Barr, a former senior Afghan researcher at the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch, wrote in response to another decision by extremists on the Twitter community.
