Reported by Sanawbar
Translated by Hasamuddin Anwari
The Taliban group have intensified restrictions on women’s travel under the pretext of wearing hijab and preventing women from traveling abroad due to not having a “male mahram” (a close man member of family like husband, father and brother) and turned it into a source of money and income.
In this report, a number of women have shared their travel experiences from airports and land borders, who missed their flight due to not having a male mahram or were forced to pay money as the fine of not having a male mahram to cross the border.
Two years ago, the husband of 25-year-old Sumia Zareh, a foreign language teacher at one of Kabul’s educational centers, left Afghanistan for Iran due to poverty, unemployment and security threats, and Sumia remained in Kabul with her two children aged 6 and 4. Sumia decided to leave Afghanistan to join her husband; after selling her household items and gold, she managed to get passport and Iran visa. However, her trip was canceled twice from the land border and once from the airport due to not having a male mahram.
She said: “There was no man in my husband’s and father’s family to accompany me, except for my 15-year-old brother-in-law, who lives with my mother-in-law. I had to travel alone. I was sent back twice from Islam Qala border and once from Kabul airport.”
Sumia joined the caravan of tourists and pilgrims and passed through the Kabul airport after paying $300 dollars bribe to the Taliban. Because she did not have a male mahram, she had to pay the fine of it. She said: “At the Kabul airport after getting the plane tickets, near the place where our passports were supposed to be stamped; the agent of the Taliban asked me why I was leaving Afghanistan. I said I was going to see my husband and parents, but they did not let me pass because I had not have a male mahram. The second time I went with the caravan of tourists and pilgrims, I paid $300 dollars as a bribe to the Taliban at the same place to be allowed to pass.” Before that, Sumia had been sent back to Kabul from the border of Islam Qala and Kabul airport due to not having male mahram.
32-year-old Latifa Hussaini was also forced to pay 10,000 Afghani ($150) for a business trip on December 14, 2023, when crossing the border because she did not have a marriage certificate, so that she and her husband were allowed to cross. While Latifa had shown pictures of her wedding ceremony to the officials of the Taliban at the Kabul airport, she could not convince them to travel with her husband and she had to have a marriage certificate to prove it. Latifa says: “My husband and I were interrogated separately, they asked my husband about me, my family and the purpose of our trip, and they also asked me about my husband, his family and even his relatives to know if we know each other or not! In the end, they used marriage certificate as an excuse.”
Getting a marriage certificate in Afghanistan is like getting a passport, it is time-consuming, costly and difficult. Latifa had to pay 10,000 Afghani as a bribe in exchange for not having a marriage certificate because her husband was not considered her as a mahram according to the Taliban. “My husband was begging not to miss our flight, in the end he paid 10,000 Afghani in their pocket under the pretext of hugging them and then they allowed us to pass.”
Women’s travel challenges are not only limited to passing through airports; crossing land borders is also challenging and costly. Zarafshan (alias), 28 years old, a women’s rights activist who was wanted for participating in civil protests against the Taliban, has crossed the Torkham border by paying money. She says: “When the person responsible for stamping passports, who was a Pakistani citizen, found out that I was traveling alone, he took my passport with him.”
Looking back, she cannot choose the Taliban again. The only way, it seems, was to pay a bribe to this border agent. “I put my hand in my pocket, the last money I had in my pocket was $100 dollars that I had kept for household expenses in Pakistan, but I put it on the desk of the Pakistani border guard, who handed me my passport without saying a word.”
In December 2021, the Taliban group banned women from traveling without a male mahram, despite widespread reactions to this order, the Taliban group have insisted on their implementation to the extent that they have made it a source of income for themselves.
