As The Hill reports, “The Taliban are reportedly requiring a strict dress code for government workers in Afghanistan, including wearing a beard, amid multiple other restrictions that echo scenes from their previous rule in the 1990s. Members of the Taliban vice and virtue ministry reportedly stood and patrolled outside government ministries on Monday, ordering male employees without traditional turbans and beards to return home, according to multiple reports. … The dress code is the latest in a series of restrictions aimed at enforcing a strict interpretation of Islamic law.”
From Reuters, “The Taliban have told airlines in Afghanistan that women cannot board domestic or international flights without a male chaperone, two sources told Reuters on Sunday. The move comes after the Taliban backtracked on their previous commitment to open high schools to girls, a u-turn that shocked many Afghans and drew condemnation from humanitarian agencies and foreign governments.”
According to the UN News, “Taliban leaders in Afghanistan are institutionalizing large scale and systematic gender-based discrimination and violence against women and girls, independent UN human rights experts warned on Monday. The group of around three dozen Human Rights Council-appointed experts highlighted a ‘wave of measures’ such as barring women from returning to their jobs, requiring a male relative to accompany them in public spaces, prohibiting women from using public transport on their own, as well as imposing a strict dress code on women and girls.”
Finally, the BBC reports, “BBC TV programming has been taken off air in Afghanistan, after the Taliban ordered local channels not to broadcast content from international partners. Calling it a ‘worrying development’, the BBC said it would affect more than six million viewers of Persian, Pashto and Uzbek language service programmes.”
As it turns out, America’s adventurism in Afghanistan was a completely colossal waste of blood and treasure. After 20 years, the Taliban returns, and they are slowly reverting Afghanistan to the fourteenth century. Sad.