Afghan women are sharing photos of dresses to protest the Taliban’s black hijab mandate

Afghan women around the world are protesting the Taliban’s new hijab requirement in schools by posting photos of themselves wearing colorful traditional dresses on social media. In recent days the Taliban has mandated the segregation of genders in classrooms and said female students, lecturers and employees must wear hijabs in accordance with the group’s interpretation of Sharia law.

On Saturday 9/11/2021 photos emerged of a group of female students wearing head-to-toe black robes and waving Taliban flags in the lecture hall of a government-run university in Kabul.Other Afghan women responded by posting pictures of themselves in bright and colorful traditional Afghan dresses — a stark contrast to the black hijab mandate outlined by the Taliban. Bahar Jalali, a former faculty member of the American University of Afghanistan according to her LinkedIn, helped kick off the picture posting campaign, according to other women who shared photos on Twitter.

Jalali quote-tweeted a picture of a woman in a full black dress and veil and said: “No woman has ever dressed like this in the history of Afghanistan. This is utterly foreign and alien to Afghan culture. I posted my pic in the traditional Afghan dress to inform, educate, and dispel the misinformation that is being propagated by Taliban.” Other Afghan women soon followed her lead on social media.