Last week, security officials associated with the Taliban shot fire in the air and used firehoses in Kabul to alert hundreds of women to shut down their parlours. The women were protesting against an order, issued by the Talibs last month, forcing the closure of thousands of parlours run by women. For women in Afghanistan, parlours have acted as a tool for financial liberation.
Parlours as a space were just not a way of finding economic stability, but they provided women with a space for socialisation. Since the Taliban seized power in 2021, women and young girls have been barred from going to schools and universities, hanging out in parks, funfairs, and gyms, and ordered to cover up in public. “When the Taliban came to power, one of the first things they did, to curb women's empowerment, was to visit every parlour and tear down the banners that showed women,” says Adiba Qayoumi, a 23-year-old refugee woman currently staying in Delhi.