By: Atrisa
Exactly one year after the Taliban officially padlocked more than 12,000 beauty salons, they are now moving to extinguish the “hidden lights” as well. The new decree is blunt: “Any place where a woman cuts hair, applies dye, or shapes eyebrows must close within thirty days, or its doors will open onto a prison cell.”
At least 50,000 female stylists and their apprentices will be thrown onto the street overnight, yet the true number of underground salons—makeshift rooms in darkened houses where women still serve clients—remains unknown.
“If they shutter this room too, no window will remain open.”
Mina Rezayi* from Badakhshan—whose real name is withheld—has held scissors and comb for ten years. “This salon is not just our workplace; it is the only space where we can breathe,” she says. Nine other women share the cramped room, all expelled from school or forced to abandon university. Mina’s eldest daughter studied law and dreamed of becoming a prosecutor; now she mixes hair dye to pay the rent. Her youngest was in eleventh grade; today she pours shampoo into cracked plastic bowls.
“If the Taliban bolt this door,” Mina warns, “seven families lose their breadwinners.”
“Walking on a blade”
Zahra Mohammadi*, a 30-year-old stylist in Herat, has not slept through the night since the order was whispered through the city. “Every motorbike engine sounds like Taliban at the gate.” She explains, “Clients don’t come just for beauty—they come to feel human for an hour. Now even that hour is being stolen.”
Zahra has two children, an unemployed husband, and no route out—the borders are sealed. “If I close, my children go hungry. If I keep working, they may watch me dragged away.”
New Extortion: “What’s the Taliban price for a box of hair dye?”
Local reports describe Taliban fighters turning the decree into a racket: “Pay up or we report you.” In some cases they confiscate entire kits—lipstick tubes, hair dryers, even half-used bottles of peroxide.
“World, do not let our voices fade.”
Women still working in hiding are pleading with human-rights groups and foreign governments for immediate help: “Teach us how to earn online, how to buy food and rent. Above all, keep our names in your reports—the Taliban want to erase us from the page of life.”
Today, the last “lanterns of hope” are dimming; lanterns that once colored only hair now provide the only color left in Afghan women’s darkening days.
