About two dozen women’s activists protested outside the Afghan service on Sundays after being closed by Taliban militants in power in Kabul and replaced by their ministries for the promotion of virtues and prevention of representatives.
The female staff said they had tried to work in service for several weeks since the Taliban takeover last month, only to be told to go home.
Signs outside the Ministry of Women’s Affairs have been replaced by one for the ministry of virtues and prevention of representatives.
“The Ministry of Affairs must be reactivated,” said Baseera Tawana, one of the protesters outside the building.
“Women’s elimination means human removal.” When the Taliban Muslims came to power from 1996-2001, girls were not permitted to attend school and women were banned from work and education.
During that period, the Ministry of Virtue and Prevention of Volatism became known as a group moral police, upholding its interpretation of sharia which included strict dress code and public execution and floggings.
The protest came a day after several girls returned to elementary school with separate gender classes, but older girls faced anxious waiting without clarity if and when they would be able to continue their studies.
“You cannot suppress the sound of Afghan women by keeping girls at home and limiting them, and by not letting them go to school,” said Protester Taranum Sayeedi.
“Afghan woman today is not a woman aged 26 years ago.” Taliban officials said they would not return to their fundamentalist policies, including a ban on girls who received education.