In the newest restriction on women’s freedom, Afghanistan’s Vice and Virtue Ministry has made it essential for female news anchors to hide their faces on air. Afghanistan’s new authorities are closing in on the country’s population. What began as a physical invasion and a rush to power now has implications for Afghans’ daily life, particularly Afghan women. When the new directive was first implemented last week, there was little compliance, prompting the ruling group to enforce it last night.
The males in the apartments soon began to conceal their faces. The male anchors were dressed to the nines and didn’t have a hair out of place as they broke news on TV while wearing masks.
In no time, the newest hashtag, #Freeherface, was trending on Twitter, with journalists, men and women, Afghans, and people from all over the world posting masked-up images of themselves.
Earlier this month, the Taliban issued an edict requiring all women to cover themselves from head to toe in public and to wear clothing that exposes just their eyes. The harsh regulation allowed women to leave their houses only when absolutely necessary and listed sanctions for male relatives if a lady broke the dress code. If the ladies refuse to cooperate, men can even be imprisoned.
During the Taliban’s previous reign in Afghanistan, they placed severe restrictions on women, including denial of education and exclusion from public life, among other things.
