Taliban decree orders women in Afghanistan to cover their faces

Afghan women will not be able to travel alone on roads 0:51

(CNN) --

Women in Afghanistan must wear face coverings in public, according to a decree issued Saturday by the Taliban.

The new rules say that women must cover their faces, ideally with the traditional burqa, according to a statement from the General Directorate of Administrative Affairs.

If a woman does not follow the rules, her "male guardian" will be visited and counseled, and eventually jailed and sentenced.

Women who work in government offices and do not comply with the new decree will be fired.

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The Taliban have been criticized for restricting women's rights and freedoms in various areas of public life.

“The Taliban can't erase us, they can't.

This is not like in the 1990s or before: they have to accept [women].

They have no choice," former Afghan politician and women's rights activist Zarifa Ghafari told CNN last month.

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Burqa-clad Afghan women at a market in Kabul on December 20, 2021.

In December, the Taliban banned women from undertaking long-distance road trips in Afghanistan on their own, requiring a male relative to accompany them any distance greater than 72 kilometers.

The new rules also asked drivers not to allow unveiled women to sit in their cars.

These are to prevent women from harm or "altercation", according to Mohammad Sadiq Hakif Mahajer, spokesman for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

In November, the Taliban issued guidelines to broadcasters banning all dramas, soap operas and entertainment programs starring women.

News anchors are now required to wear headscarves on screen as well.

These were the first such restrictions to be imposed on the country's media network.

And despite early promises by the Taliban that women would retain their right to education, girls' secondary schools closed in March, on the morning they were supposed to open.

In January, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on Taliban leaders to recognize and protect the fundamental human rights of women and girls.

"No country can prosper by denying the rights of half its population," he said.

Return of girls to schools in Afghanistan postponed again 0:37

Taliban women's rights