Foreign diplomats and international aid organisations appear to be taking a wait-and-see approach to the Taliban’s new morality law, as it’s still too early to tell how strictly the rules will be enforced and what the effects on daily life and relief work across Afghanistan will be.

When Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government ratified a new series of amendments to the rules in August, it was feared it would set back efforts both to increase international engagement with the Islamic Emirate and to respond to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

The announcement of the law, which dictates how men and women can dress in public, what content people can store on their smartphones, and whether Afghans can befriend non-Muslims, came just weeks after a breakthrough UN-led meeting in Qatar that saw Taliban officials sit face-to-face with senior foreign envoys for the first time.

The morality law shift caught diplomats and aid workers by surprise. They began to question how its enforcement would affect their ability to engage with Afghans and work with their local colleagues at a time when 23.7 million people remain in need of assistance.

After the seeming optimism of the Doha gathering, it also led to strong criticism from foreign governments: Australia, Canada, Germany and The Netherlands said they would take the Islamic Emirate to the International Court of Justice for its “contempt” for the rights of women.

Rights activists and celebrities also took on the law.

During a speech on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Academy Award-winning actress Meryl Streep claimed the law forbade women from speaking outside the home and said: “Today in Kabul a female cat has more freedom than a woman.”

But those determined to continue engaging with the Taliban or to carry on aid work in Afghanistan are looking beyond the media furore – perpetuated in part by politicians from the former Western-backed government – to try to understand the real-life implications of the law.

What does the law actually change?

The 35 amendments to the Law on Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice include prohibitions on everything from men’s haircuts that are deemed to be against shari’a to storing any visual representations of living beings on mobile phones.

Building on the existing law, the amendments also prohibit women from sitting or intermingling with non-mahram men (men they are allowed to marry), with no clear distinctions made for personal and professional settings.

although offices have long taken measures to ensure the segregation of the sexes, businesses and organisations with foreign, non-Muslim staff fear their presence in the workplace could be deemed as a violation of the prohibitions on Afghans interacting with non-believers.

“I don’t know if I will be allowed to speak to my colleagues, or if I’ll just have to leave at some point,” one female European NGO worker said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic.

Local Afghan aid organisations and other Afghan businesses in Kabul, which also asked to comment anonymously, said they receive regular visits from the morality police, particularly to monitor the segregation of the sexes and to check their workers are attending communal prayers.

But this, they said, had already largely been the case, so things haven’t changed drastically. “These checks have been going on for more than two years; they’re routine,” one local Afghan NGO worker said.

What has the US reaction been?

On the sidelines of an aid conference in Dubai during the first week of October, Karen Decker, chargé d’affaires of the US mission to Afghanistan, said that Washington is closely following the enforcement of the law.

“We’re still monitoring it, trying to assess what it means and how it’s being implemented,” Decker said, adding that this includes discussions with sources on the ground and following media and rights group reports on any enforcement issues.

While Decker said Washington’s “humanitarian assistance continues unabated” for now, she was quick to caution that this doesn’t mean the US isn’t worried about the implications of the law, which she sees as proof that the Islamic Emirate is heading in the wrong direction.

“The morality law indicates more restrictions on Afghans, not just women, but men and women,” she said. “It’s not what we hear Afghan people say they want for their lives. So it’s a cause for concern.”

Decker said the law also seems to be a step back from what she and other diplomats heard from the Taliban representatives in Doha.

“They spoke of wanting to have good relations with the international community and understanding the value of engaging in a multilateral process that helped achieve good things for the Afghan people,” Decker said of the tone at the June-July talks. “This morality law does not seem to indicate a desire to have Afghanistan be part of an international community.”

Masuda Sultan, an Afghan-American entrepreneur and women’s rights activist who has spent 25 years working on Afghan matters, agreed, fearing that the latest developments send entirely the wrong message about the Islamic Emirate wanting to engage in good faith with the world.

“Things are getting better, but the Taliban are getting worse,” she said, referring to how positive developments in the banking and diplomatic sectors are in stark contrast with the Islamic Emirate’s need to push its morality agenda and alienate potential partners.

What does the Taliban say?

The Taliban insists it is acting in accordance with its interpretation of Islamic law and the will of the Afghan people.

In a statement, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, the Islamic Emirate’s spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said: “Our position is principled: The laws, regulations, and rules of states are the internal affairs of a country in line with their beliefs and traditions and none has the right to interfere in the internal affairs of others.”

Balkhi went on to stress that the Afghan government’s domestic policies should not be mistaken as a lack of willingness from the Islamic Emirate to engage with the outside world.

“We remain open to engaging with all sides on economy, banking, aviation, investment, narcotics, migration, diplomatic and consular services, and a range of other issues of common interests and concerns,” he said.

And what about international aid groups?

These are, of course, not the first restrictions the Taliban has placed on the Afghan people or on NGOs.

In late 2022, shortly after having closed university doors to Afghan women, the Islamic Emirate introduced a ban on women working for NGOs.

A female worker at a leading international aid organisation said NGOs have learned to be quick on their feet to find ways to continue their work in a way that reaches all Afghans, including women and girls, while also mitigating the risk of intrusions from Islamic Emirate officials.

“Sometimes it comes down to creative wordplay,” like shifting the focus onto families rather than women, said the international aid worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect her organisation’s ability to work in the country.

Other times, she said, they simply pointed out the disparities that persist in the country.

“You just have to show them the shortages and lack of capacity to convince them to let you do certain things,” she said, citing one instance when her organisation responded to criticisms of bringing women from one district to another by saying it would therefore need to train women in that second district to do the work. “When we explained that, they allowed us to set up a training centre for women in that district,” she said.

• A Tell report / Republished with permission from The New Humanitarian

Foreign diplomats and international aid organisations appear to be taking a wait-and-see approach to the Taliban’s new morality law, as it’s still too early to tell how strictly the rules will be enforced and what the effects on daily life and relief work across Afghanistan will be.

When Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government ratified a new series of amendments to the rules in August, it was feared it would set back efforts both to increase international engagement with the Islamic Emirate and to respond to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

The announcement of the law, which dictates how men and women can dress in public, what content people can store on their smartphones, and whether Afghans can befriend non-Muslims, came just weeks after a breakthrough UN-led meeting in Qatar that saw Taliban officials sit face-to-face with senior foreign envoys for the first time.

The morality law shift caught diplomats and aid workers by surprise. They began to question how its enforcement would affect their ability to engage with Afghans and work with their local colleagues at a time when 23.7 million people remain in need of assistance.

After the seeming optimism of the Doha gathering, it also led to strong criticism from foreign governments: Australia, Canada, Germany and The Netherlands said they would take the Islamic Emirate to the International Court of Justice for its “contempt” for the rights of women.

Rights activists and celebrities also took on the law.

During a speech on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Academy Award-winning actress Meryl Streep claimed the law forbade women from speaking outside the home and said: “Today in Kabul a female cat has more freedom than a woman.”

But those determined to continue engaging with the Taliban or to carry on aid work in Afghanistan are looking beyond the media furore – perpetuated in part by politicians from the former Western-backed government – to try to understand the real-life implications of the law.

What does the law actually change?

The 35 amendments to the Law on Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice include prohibitions on everything from men’s haircuts that are deemed to be against shari’a to storing any visual representations of living beings on mobile phones.

Building on the existing law, the amendments also prohibit women from sitting or intermingling with non-mahram men (men they are allowed to marry), with no clear distinctions made for personal and professional settings.

although offices have long taken measures to ensure the segregation of the sexes, businesses and organisations with foreign, non-Muslim staff fear their presence in the workplace could be deemed as a violation of the prohibitions on Afghans interacting with non-believers.

“I don’t know if I will be allowed to speak to my colleagues, or if I’ll just have to leave at some point,” one female European NGO worker said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic.

Local Afghan aid organisations and other Afghan businesses in Kabul, which also asked to comment anonymously, said they receive regular visits from the morality police, particularly to monitor the segregation of the sexes and to check their workers are attending communal prayers.

But this, they said, had already largely been the case, so things haven’t changed drastically. “These checks have been going on for more than two years; they’re routine,” one local Afghan NGO worker said.

What has the US reaction been?

On the sidelines of an aid conference in Dubai during the first week of October, Karen Decker, chargé d’affaires of the US mission to Afghanistan, said that Washington is closely following the enforcement of the law.

“We’re still monitoring it, trying to assess what it means and how it’s being implemented,” Decker said, adding that this includes discussions with sources on the ground and following media and rights group reports on any enforcement issues.

While Decker said Washington’s “humanitarian assistance continues unabated” for now, she was quick to caution that this doesn’t mean the US isn’t worried about the implications of the law, which she sees as proof that the Islamic Emirate is heading in the wrong direction.

“The morality law indicates more restrictions on Afghans, not just women, but men and women,” she said. “It’s not what we hear Afghan people say they want for their lives. So it’s a cause for concern.”

Decker said the law also seems to be a step back from what she and other diplomats heard from the Taliban representatives in Doha.

“They spoke of wanting to have good relations with the international community and understanding the value of engaging in a multilateral process that helped achieve good things for the Afghan people,” Decker said of the tone at the June-July talks. “This morality law does not seem to indicate a desire to have Afghanistan be part of an international community.”

Masuda Sultan, an Afghan-American entrepreneur and women’s rights activist who has spent 25 years working on Afghan matters, agreed, fearing that the latest developments send entirely the wrong message about the Islamic Emirate wanting to engage in good faith with the world.

“Things are getting better, but the Taliban are getting worse,” she said, referring to how positive developments in the banking and diplomatic sectors are in stark contrast with the Islamic Emirate’s need to push its morality agenda and alienate potential partners.

What does the Taliban say?

The Taliban insists it is acting in accordance with its interpretation of Islamic law and the will of the Afghan people.

In a statement, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, the Islamic Emirate’s spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said: “Our position is principled: The laws, regulations, and rules of states are the internal affairs of a country in line with their beliefs and traditions and none has the right to interfere in the internal affairs of others.”

Balkhi went on to stress that the Afghan government’s domestic policies should not be mistaken as a lack of willingness from the Islamic Emirate to engage with the outside world.

“We remain open to engaging with all sides on economy, banking, aviation, investment, narcotics, migration, diplomatic and consular services, and a range of other issues of common interests and concerns,” he said.

And what about international aid groups?

These are, of course, not the first restrictions the Taliban has placed on the Afghan people or on NGOs.

In late 2022, shortly after having closed university doors to Afghan women, the Islamic Emirate introduced a ban on women working for NGOs.

A female worker at a leading international aid organisation said NGOs have learned to be quick on their feet to find ways to continue their work in a way that reaches all Afghans, including women and girls, while also mitigating the risk of intrusions from Islamic Emirate officials.

“Sometimes it comes down to creative wordplay,” like shifting the focus onto families rather than women, said the international aid worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect her organisation’s ability to work in the country.

Other times, she said, they simply pointed out the disparities that persist in the country.

“You just have to show them the shortages and lack of capacity to convince them to let you do certain things,” she said, citing one instance when her organisation responded to criticisms of bringing women from one district to another by saying it would therefore need to train women in that second district to do the work. “When we explained that, they allowed us to set up a training centre for women in that district,” she said.

• A Tell report / Republished with permission from The New Humanitarian