These days in Kabul, we’re seeing scenes that feel like they’ve come out of the Middle Ages. Young women crying in the streets, asking the Taliban: “Where are you taking our daughters?” And men standing by, heads bowed, unable to speak, just watching helplessly. The Taliban round up women and girls, shove them into vehicles, and call it “enjoining virtue.”
But everyone knows the veil is just an excuse. Most of these women were already veiled — wearing long dresses, black chadors, headscarves. Nothing about them violated any social or religious norms. Their only crime was simply being there. Walking. Shopping. Existing. And that alone was enough to make the Taliban feel threatened.
The Taliban are not afraid of women because their hair shows or because their clothes are too short. They’re afraid of women simply being seen, of their voices being heard, of reminding the world that half of Afghan society is still alive. They want to drive women back into their homes, lock them away in dark rooms, and erase them from public life.
I spoke to someone who witnessed the arrests in Shahr-e-Naw that day. He said:
“All of them were veiled. But the Taliban shouted at them, slapped them, wrapped their chadors around their necks and dragged them into the cars. As if they weren’t even human. As if they didn’t have the right to breathe.”
Another woman told me:
“We don’t even know why anymore. Maybe just because we dared to step outside. Our veil means nothing to them. They just want to make us disappear.”
The Taliban know that every woman who stands in the street is a quiet form of resistance. Every breath she takes defies their suffocating control. That’s why they go after women with such violence — because they want women to be so terrified that they lock the doors on themselves and stop showing up.
But this violence doesn’t only hurt women. Men shrink in shame and silence. Families are paralyzed by fear. Society rots from the inside. And when people become too afraid to speak, the Taliban win.
We need to recognize that when the veil is not a choice, it’s no longer a virtue — it becomes a cage. The Taliban use that cage to imprison an entire nation.
With every woman they arrest, they’re sending the same message to all of us: “You are nothing. You have no rights. You will obey.”
And yet, Afghan women — with tearful eyes and unanswered questions — are still standing. Still visible. Still refusing to vanish.
The veil is just an excuse. The truth is, the Taliban fear nothing more than women simply being women.
