Taliban Bars Women Without Male Guardians from Hairatan Market; Complaints of Humiliating Treatment Escalate
Local sources in the port town of Hairatan in Balkh province report that the Taliban administration is preventing women who, according to them, do not have a “sharia-compliant male guardian” from entering the shared market between Afghanistan and eight Central Asian countries in Uzbekistan. This market hosts a large number of Afghan citizens daily.
According to these sources, Taliban forces stop women, especially those who are elderly or without guardians, from crossing, and refuse to check their identification documents, while using abusive language and behaving disrespectfully. These actions have created an atmosphere of fear and humiliation among visitors.
Local sources also add that on Fridays, when visitor numbers increase, Taliban personnel keep citizens waiting for hours under various pretenses and treat them with humiliation. This situation reportedly happens regularly.
An Afghan citizen who has experienced traveling to this market says, “The treatment the Taliban show us on this side of the border is worse than anything we’ve faced even from the Uzbeks. They line people up, say the passports will be checked, but after hours of waiting, without any checks, they lash us and expel us from the area.”
Sources note that a large number of visitors to this market are elderly women who travel there to seek medical treatment and consultations from Uzbek and Russian doctors. However, the restrictions imposed by the Taliban administration have seriously hindered these women’s access to healthcare services.
The sources emphasize that barring women from entering on the grounds of lacking a male guardian is part of broader restrictions on freedom of movement and access to basic services—a policy whose humanitarian and social consequences, especially for women, are deepening day by day. The Taliban administration has yet to respond to these allegations.
