The Taliban have banned hairdressers in Afghanistan’s Helmand province from shaving or trimming beards, saying it breaches their interpretation of Islamic law, reports the BBC.
“Anyone violating the rule will be punished,” Taliban religious police say. Some barbers in the capital, Kabul have said they also received similar orders.
The instructions suggest a return to the strict rulings of the group’s past tenure in power.
In a notice posted at salons, Taliban officers warned that hairdressers must follow Sharia law for haircuts and beards.
“No one has a right to complain,” the notice stated, which was seen by the BBC.
“Stop following American styles,” said another hairdresser, who received a call from someone claiming to be a government official.
A barber said that although he has not received an official order, he stopped offering beard trims.
“Customers don’t shave their beards because they don’t want to be targeted by the Taliban fighters in the streets. They want to blend in and look like them,” he said.
While most salons across the country have opened their doors for business with the necessary SOPs in place, two of Karachi’s leading salons, Natasha’s Salon and Bina Khan, have decided to remain closed despite permission from the Government and the Supreme Court to resume business.
Natasha Khalid of Natasha’s Salon and Bina Khan announced on social media that they will not be opening their salons due the continuous increase in corona cases.
“We have since yesterday received a barrage of calls asking if we’re open for services for Eid, mostly because the Supreme Court of Pakistan has ordered ‘resumption of normalcy’,” wrote Khalid.
“First things first. Nothing is normal or back to normal! We have just been allowed to open shop & remove all corona-related limitations in the midst of a peak.”
“This is being done due to enormous economical/social pressures, which have nothing to do with the fact that numbers of COVID-19 affectees are increasing on an hourly basis; that people both young and old, sick and healthy, are dying from it,” she remarked, adding, “We already have put extraordinary pressures on our health systems and are ever-increasingly encumbering hospitals and health workers with exponential risks.”
Urging everyone to stay home, Natasha wrote, “Blow-dry your hair at home this time and if you can’t, tie that loose braid. Have hair on your arms and legs. Or just shave. Get a facial with the help of a plethora of ‘at home facials’ available online and watch one of the dozens of tutorials to get ready this Eid.”
Announcing her decision, she wrote: “I will not risk my staff, myself, or anyone walking through my doors getting unwell. I am trying to generate cash from online classes to pay my staff and keep my business alive, but I will not risk opening my doors because I know I can’t guarantee 100% that someone will not get ill.”
Similarly, Bina Khan said that her salon will remain closed “because we care”.
In a note, Khan wrote that she spoke to a couple of doctor before making her decision and they all explained to her that “providing normal salon services undeniably comes with some risk”.
“I do not think that anything that goes on in a salon is an essential service so we have decided to keep our doors closed,” she stated, adding that her salon will open as soon as it’s medically advisable.
Like Natasha, Bina said that online classes are allowing her to generate income so she is able to pay her staff.
However, Bina said that she will make exceptions for her brides, but with strict precautionary measures in place.
“I will open for my brides when they come because I understand that their weddings have been scaled back so hugely that looking like a bride and feeling special is a service that has started to feel more essential than it normally is. I am willing to risk my health for these poor corona brides, whose dream days have been so severely tarnished. But I will go alone and will only ask one staff member to help, taking every precaution known to man while we do so,” wrote the makeup artist.
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Meanwhile, other salons across the country have opened with the necessary precautions, including PPEs, sanitizers and masks, in place.
One of Pakistan’s leading salons, which has branches in major cities of Pakistan, Nabila’s Salon, recently announced that they would open up the salon for business after taking all the necessary precautions.
Nabila, in a video, said that the service industry is suffering the most due to the pandemic but that “we all have a choice”.
“We all have a choice. We can either live in the circle of concern, freak out, watch the news or wait for things to happen, or we can live in the circle of influence and take full charge,” said Nabila.
She then went onto say that because she is an optimist, she would choose the latter option and make decisions regarding her personal and professional life by ‘Raising the Bar’.
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The salon, in a video, stated that it will be “a safe space with a superior level of hygiene combined with best practices and medical level sanitisation to ensure the health and well being of everyone who walks through our doors.”
The salon’s announcement to open was met with immense backlash and Nabila took to personally respond to them and defend her decision. While comments have now been disabled on the post, screenshots are being widely circulated on social media.
Later while speaking tovarious media outlets, Nabila said that she will not be bullied. She said that she has not opened the salon as yet but will wait for the government to give the green signal. She said the videos the salon had posted were to tell their clients of the precautions they will be taking once they open and to also let the government know that they are fully equipped to provide services. Nabila shared that she consulted doctors and experts before making her decisions.
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The entrepreneur further added that as the President of Pakistan’s Hair and Beauty Association, it is her duty to ensure that her industry, which employs thousands of workers, is also looked after. She said that she spoke to several salon owners who were also feeling the brunt of the pandemic as they have workers and staff to pay and they decided that they will prepare themselves and then approach the government to allow them to provide services with the necessary SOPs and precautions in place.
On the question of wasting PPEs, Nabila said that the country is now producing a surplus of protective equipment and that a friend of her’s who has a garment factory lent her kits for the promotional videos. She said that if needed, she will place an order with him for the salon.
Nabila stood her ground and said that she is being responsible and proactive. She said that she also has employees to pay and that for the past two months, she has been paying them from her own pocket.
Nabila added: “We are responsible for the bread and butter of hundreds of families. How can we not think of ways to fall in line with this new norm? Should we not be considering the possibilities on how the world would work post-corona?”
