Taliban terrorist authorities in Afghanistan have ordered female patients and staff to wear a burka – the full head-to-toe Islamic body covering – if they want to access public health care in the western city of Herat.
The BBC reports medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said the Sharia law-based restrictions came into effect from November 5.
“These restrictions further impede women’s lives and limit women’s access to health care,” Sarah Chateau, the agency’s programme manager in Afghanistan, told the BBC. She said even those “in need of urgent medical care” had been affected.
The BBC report notes MSF, which supports paediatric services at Herat Regional Hospital, said it had observed a 28 percent drop in admissions of patients whose conditions were urgent during the first few days of the new Islamic enforcement.
Chateau said Taliban members had been denying entry to women without the burka by standing at the entrance of the health facilities. A burka is a one-piece veil that covers the face and body, often leaving just a mesh screen to see through.
A Taliban spokesperson for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Ministry, which enforces strict religious doctrines, dismissed reports women were being forced to wear the burka and said it was all a misunderstanding.
“This is totally false. The position of the vice and virtue ministry is generally on the wearing of hijab,” Saif-ul-Islam Khyber pleaded.
Hijab means covering up generally but also describes the headscarves enforced on Muslim women.
The U.N. envoy for Afghanistan in 2022 warned the Taliban international recognition as the country’s legitimate government will remain “nearly impossible” unless they lift the restrictions on women even as the terror group demands a place on the international stage.
The Taliban enforced the burka during their first stint in power in the 1990s.
Since seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban government has imposed numerous restrictions, particularly for women, in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.
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