Kabul’s mannequins, hooded and masked under Taliban rules

The mannequins in women’s dress shops across the Afghan capital of Kabul seen heads cloaked in cloth sacks or wrapped in black plastic bags, under the Taliban rules.

The covered mannequins are one symbol of the Taliban’s puritanical rule over Afghanistan.

It is also a small show of resistance by Kabul’s dress merchants.

Initially, the Taliban wanted the mannequins to be outright beheaded.

Not long after they seized power in August 2021, the Taliban Ministry of Vice and Virtue decreed that all mannequins must be removed from shop windows or their heads taken off, according to local media.