HERAT: Taliban clothing restrictions have badly hit garment and small businesses in Afghanistan’s western city of Herat, where shopkeepers say women are increasingly staying home out of fear of arrest or harassment.
Local traders said customer numbers have fallen sharply since Taliban morality police intensified enforcement of women’s dress codes. The crackdown followed the detention of dozens of women accused of not wearing the Taliban-approved chador or burqa.
Herat has traditionally depended heavily on women shoppers, especially in clothing, tailoring and household markets. Traders say their absence has reduced daily sales and left many shops struggling.
“Since those incidents occurred, there were no women in the markets,” Ramin Ghafoori, a 26-year-old tailor, told AFP. “The bazaar revolves around women. If there is no woman, there is no bazaar.”
The impact has also spread to taxi drivers, restaurants and small traders who rely on market activity.
The United Nations earlier expressed concern over arrests and detentions of women in Herat for alleged non-compliance with dress requirements, saying such actions raised serious human rights concerns.
The Taliban’s rules require women to cover their bodies and faces in public, while officers from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice monitor compliance.
Rights groups say the restrictions are not only erasing women from public life but also damaging Afghanistan’s already fragile economy.
