Women lose value if their faces are visible to men in public – Taliban official

Dr Tim Winter, who is the Shaykh Zayed lecturer in Islamic studies at the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University, said there was no scriptural mandate in Islam for face coverings

Molvi Mohammad Sadiq Akif, the spokesman for the Taliban’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue, speaks during an interview in Kabul, Afghanistan (Siddiqullah Alizai/AP)

Women lose value if men can see their uncovered faces in public, a spokesman for a key ministry of Afghanistan’s Taliban government has said, adding that religious scholars in the country agree that a woman must keep her face covered when outside the home.

The Taliban, who took over the country in August 2021, have cited the failure of women to observe the proper way to wear the hijab, or Islamic headscarf, as a reason for barring them from most public spaces, including parks, jobs and university.