Taliban closure of beauty salons removes last safe haven for Afghan women
As I stepped into my local beauty salon here in England to have my nails done ahead of my brother’s wedding, my phone pinged.
It was a catch-up message from a 23-year-old Afghan woman I have stayed in touch with since we met in Kabul last year.
The irony of the timing of her message wasn’t lost on me.
I had been thinking about her and the other young women from Afghanistan I’ve met in the last few years, when the Taliban ordered all beauty salons in Afghanistan to be shut.
“Salons, gyms, universities, baths, it is all just an excuse,” she wrote, “they just want to destroy us, either to be their slaves like their mothers, or be killed.”
When we first met in August 2022, one year after the Taliban’s takeover, she was already afraid of what would come. So afraid that she didn’t want her name or face published – not then and not now.
She and other women we spoke to likened their lives to “being in prison” almost every day, being told what to wear, what to say, and what to do by the Taliban’s ‘morality police’.
The one place, though, they all knew they could catch a break was inside their beauty salons.
They were another world altogether.
The salons allowed women to cast off many of the shackles of public life
When I was working in Kabul last year, I visited one of these salons along with a female journalist friend of mine. No men are allowed inside.
We wanted to see whether the salons were still operating as usual, and we actually just wanted to be in a space where women aren’t judged or vilified just for being a woman.
Mostly dark, thick, ‘inoffensive’ curtains separated the salons from the streets – though some went for bold-coloured curtains, and I liked that, it felt like a small act of rebellion.
Painted nails and skinny jeans
Once women entered those curtains, for a moment they were free.
They were free to take off their black abayas and niqabs and store them in a cupboard and instead walk around in skinny jeans and a ‘nice top’.
They were free to have their nails painted in bright yellows, oranges, and pinks on the toes they aren’t supposed to show.
The owner we spoke to (above) always feared the Taliban would force salons to close
And they were free to say anything they wanted to say while they chatted away and exchanged news as their hair was being cut, coloured, and blow-dried.
One group of young women were gathered in a corner of the two-storey salon getting ready for a family wedding.
They were wearing traditional, colourful Kuchi dresses and ornate jewellery and headwear, with sparkly high heels.
They looked stunning, but they couldn’t show their faces because they didn’t want to get in trouble.
The salon’s owner, a feisty woman full of confidence and positive energy, was happy to talk as she managed her staff and dozens of clients.
She insisted she didn’t want to cover her face for the interview, she wanted to speak openly, though she didn’t want her or her salon’s name published – just in case.
At the time, she talked about the tense relationship between her salon and the morality police.
“The Taliban holds all the power, they could close my business at any time,” she said matter-of-factly. But she hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
Some salons had images of women defaced, others chose to remove them when the Taliban took over (below)
Pic: AP
The salon owner is the main breadwinner for her family and said it didn’t make sense to shut salons because they operate behind closed doors and are a vital part of the economy.
She correctly pointed out that not allowing women to finish their higher education, run businesses, or progress in society would have a profound long-term impact on the economy.
I’ve tried to get in touch with her since this latest edict was published, but I’ve yet to make contact.
For now, I can only assume the salon we stepped into has now been shut down.
Every day since foreign troops left Afghanistan, life has become worse and worse for women and girls.
The younger generation, many of whom only knew life under the 20-year NATO command, are a tech-savvy group who – in Kabul especially – are not used to not having their freedoms.
‘I just want to live’
Last month, the United Nations published a report detailing just how much those freedoms have been curbed.
“In Afghanistan today, girls and women are denied education beyond primary level, banned from working outside the home in most sectors, prohibited from accessing public baths, parks, and gyms, and moving freely around the country,” the report stated.
The Taliban have massively rowed back on the freedom of women and girls. Pic: AP
It found that the Taliban has “severely restricted the rights of women and girls and suffocated every dimension of their lives”.
And that is how many women feel: suffocated and invisible.
I still often receive messages like “nobody hears us”, “I need to get out of this scary and dangerous place,” and “I just want to live”.
There are clear divisions within the Taliban, we found that when we were last in Afghanistan.
The younger generation of leadership realise that if they want to be allowed back at the international table they will have to give women and girls their rights back.
But it would appear from the latest order that the old guard are still holding sway.
It may seem like frippery to mourn the loss of beauty salons, but when every other right and freedom has already been taken away, the loss of one of your last remaining safe havens is another huge blow.
World
In the idyllic Cognac region of southern France, Trump’s tariffs threaten a centuries-old way of life
The impact of Trump’s tariffs is reaching deep into every economy.
We travelled into the French rural heartland, heading for Cognac – the home of French brandy.
It is only half the size of Surrey but its exports to America are worth €1bn a year and that trade is now severely threatened.
The first buds are out on the vines of Amy Pasquet’s vineyard.
An American, she has married into the industry and with her French husband owns JLP Cognac.
She knows more than most the bond brandy has formed between their two countries that goes back to the war.
Tariffs latest: Follow live updates
Ms Pasquet said: “A lot of the African-American soldiers had really loved their experience here and had brought back the cognac. And I think that stayed because this African-American community truly is a community and they want to drink like their grandfather did.”
The ties remain with rappers like Jay Z’s love for cognac.
However, Ms Pasquet adds: “There’s also this other community of people who have been drinking bourbon for a long time, love bourbon, but find the prices just outrageous today. So they want to try something different.”
Amy Pasquet owns JLP Cognac with her husband
JLP’s products were served at New York’s prestigious Met Gala.
They were preparing to launch new product lines in the US. But now that’s in doubt.
It is hard being an American in France now, Ms Pasquet says.
Her French neighbours are appalled by what US President Donald Trump is doing.
She continues: “They’re like, okay, America’s forgotten how close France and America are as far as (their) relationship is concerned. And I think that’s hurtful on both sides. I think it’s important to remember that the US is many things, and not just this one person, and there are millions of inhabitants that didn’t vote for him.”
A fresh challenge for a centuries-old tradition
Making cognac takes years, using techniques that go back centuries. In another vineyard we met Pierre Louis Giboin whose family have been doing it for more than 200 years.
In a cellar dating back to the French Revolution, barrels of oak sit under thick cobwebs, ageing the brandy.
The walls are lined with a unique black mould that thrives off the vapours of cognac.
They have seen threats come and go over those centuries, wars, weather, pestilence. But never from a country they regard as one of their oldest allies and best of customers.
Read more:
What China could do next as Trump’s tariff war
How tariffs will affect your money
Could Trump’s tariffs tip the world into recession?
Pierre Louis Giboin’s cellar dates back to the French revolution
Mr Trump’s tariffs, says Mr Giboin, now threaten a way of life.
“It’s at the end of like very good times in the Cognac region. It’s been like 10 years when everything’s been perfect, we have good harvest, we sell really easily all the stock, but now I mean it’s the end.”
Ms Pasquet and Mr Giboin are unusual.
Most cognac makers sell their produce through the drink’s four big houses, Hennessy, Remy Martin, Martell and Courvoisier.
Some have been told the amounts they can sell have been drastically reduced.
Independents though like them must find new markets if the tariff threat persists.
Confusion away from the chaos
Outside in the dappled light of a Cognac evening Mr Giboin and I toast glasses of pineau – the diluted form of cognac drunk as an aperitif.
In this idyllic corner of France, a world away from Washington, Mr Trump’s trade war on Europe simply makes no sense.
“He’s like angry against the whole world and the way he talks like that Europe the EU was made against the US to cheat on the US. It’s just crazy to think like this,” Mr Giboin says.
It’s not just what Mr Trump’s done. It’s how Europe now strikes back that concerns the French. And it’s not just in Cognac where they’re concerned
France exports more than €2bn worth of wine to America.
In the heart of the Bordeaux wine region, Sylvie Courselle’s family have been making wine since the 1940s at their Chateau Thieuley vineyard.
It’s bottling season but they can’t prepare the wine headed for America while everything is up in the air.
Showing me the unused reels of US labels for her wine she told me she was losing sleep over the uncertainty.
Later she was meeting with her American distributors.
Gerry Keogh sells Ms Courselle’s wine across the US.
He says the entire industry is reeling
Sylvie Courselle with distributers
The Chateau Thieuley vineyard in the Bordeaux wine region
“I think it’s like anything. You don’t really believe it’s happening. And even when you’re in the midst of it, it was kind of like 9/11.
“You’re like… This is actually happening. It’s unbelievable. And when you start seeing the repercussions from the stock market, et cetera, and how it’s impacting every level, it’s quite shocking.”
They know the crisis is far from over and could now escalate.
“We feel stuck in the middle of this commercial war and we don’t have the weapons to fight, I think,” Ms Courselle said.
It is, she says, very stressful.
Gerry Keogh
The histories of America and France have been intertwined for centuries through revolutions against tyranny and two wars fighting for liberty.
America used to call France its oldest ally, but under Donald Trump its now seen here as turning on France and the rest of Europe in a reckless and unjustified trade war.
It is all doing enormous harm to relations between the US and its European allies.
How Europe now decides to retaliate will help determine the extent of that damage.
World
In the idyllic Cognac region of southern France, Trump’s tariffs threaten a centuries-old way of life
The impact of Trump’s tariffs is reaching deep into every economy.
We travelled into the French rural heartland, heading for Cognac – the home of French brandy.
It is only half the size of Surrey but its exports to America are worth €1bn a year and that trade is now severely threatened.
The first buds are out on the vines of Amy Pasquet’s vineyard.
An American, she has married into the industry and with her French husband owns JLP Cognac.
She knows more than most the bond brandy has formed between their two countries that goes back to the war.
Tariffs latest: Follow live updates
Ms Pasquet said: “A lot of the African-American soldiers had really loved their experience here and had brought back the cognac. And I think that stayed because this African-American community truly is a community. and they want to drink like their grandfather did.”
The ties remain with rappers like Jay Z’s love for cognac.
However, Ms Pasquet adds: “There’s also this other community of people who have been drinking bourbon for a long time, love bourbon, but find the prices just outrageous today. So they want to try something different.”
Amy Pasquet owns JLP Cognac with her husband
JLP’s products were served at New York’s prestigious Met Gala.
They were preparing to launch new product lines in the US. But now that’s in doubt.
It is hard being an American in France now, Ms Pasquet says.
Her French neighbours are appalled by what US President Donald Trump is doing.
She continues: “They’re like, okay, America’s forgotten how close France and America are as far as (their) relationship is concerned. And I think that’s hurtful on both sides. I think it’s important to remember that the US is many things, and not just this one person, and there are millions of inhabitants that didn’t vote for him.”
A fresh challenge for a centuries-old tradition
Making cognac takes years, using techniques that go back centuries. In another vineyard we met Pierre Louis Giboin whose family have been doing it for more than 200 years.
In a cellar dating back to the French Revolution, barrels of oak sit under thick cobwebs, ageing the brandy.
The walls are lined with a unique black mould that thrives off the vapours of cognac.
They have seen threats come and go over those centuries, wars, weather, pestilence. But never from a country they regard as one of their oldest allies and best of customers.
Read more:
What China could do next as Trump’s tariff war
How tariffs will affect your money
Could Trump’s tariffs tip the world into recession?
Pierre Louis Giboin’s cellar dates back to the French revolution
Mr Trump’s tariffs, says Mr Giboin, now threaten a way of life.
“It’s at the end of like very good times in the Cognac region. It’s been like 10 years when everything’s been perfect, we have good harvest, we sell really easily all the stock, but now I mean it’s the end.”
Ms Pasquet and Mr Giboin are unusual.
Most cognac makers sell their produce through the drink’s four big houses, Hennessy, Remy Martin, Martell and Courvoisier.
Some have been told the amounts they can sell have been drastically reduced.
Independents though like them must find new markets if the tariff threat persists.
Confusion away from the chaos
Outside in the dappled light of a Cognac evening Mr Giboin and I toast glasses of pineau – the diluted form of cognac drunk as an aperitif.
In this idyllic corner of France, a world away from Washington, Mr Trump’s trade war on Europe simply makes no sense.
“He’s like angry against the whole world and the way he talks like that Europe the EU was made against the US to cheat on the US. It’s just crazy to think like this,” Mr Giboin says.
It’s not just what Mr Trump’s done. It’s how Europe now strikes back that concerns the French. And it’s not just in Cognac where they’re concerned
France exports more than €2bn worth of wine to America.
In the heart of the Bordeaux wine region, Sylvie Courselle’s family have been making wine since the 1940s at their Chateau Thieuley vineyard.
It’s bottling season but they can’t prepare the wine headed for America while everything is up in the air.
Showing me the unused reels of US labels for her wine she told me she was losing sleep over the uncertainty.
Later she was meeting with her American distributors.
Gerry Keogh sells Ms Courselle’s wine across the US.
He says the entire industry is reeling
Sylvie Courselle with distributers
The Chateau Thieuley vineyard in the Bordeaux wine region
“I think it’s like anything. You don’t really believe it’s happening. And even when you’re in the midst of it, it was kind of like 9/11.
“You’re like… This is actually happening. It’s unbelievable. And when you start seeing the repercussions from the stock market, et cetera, and how it’s impacting every level, it’s quite shocking.”
They know the crisis is far from over and could now escalate.
“We feel stuck in the middle of this commercial war and we don’t have the weapons to fight, I think,” Ms Courselle said.
It is, she says, very stressful.
Gerry Keogh
The histories of America and France have been intertwined for centuries through revolutions against tyranny and two wars fighting for liberty.
America used to call France its oldest ally, but under Mr Trump it is now being as turned on, as France, along with the rest of Europe, finds itself in what many would argue is a reckless and unjustified trade war.
It is all doing enormous harm to relations between the US and its European allies.
How Europe now decides to retaliate will help determine the extent of that damage.
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