Tajikistan announced Wednesday that it will publish a new book imposing stricter dress “guidelines” for women, further restricting women’s freedoms and tightening the secular state’s control over personal choices. Authorities in the Muslim-majority Central Asian nation maintain strict control over society, including issues affecting women and girls.
The ex-Soviet country has in recent years imposed “traditional” Tajik attire, banning “clothing alien to national culture” last year, in a crackdown on Muslim clothing.
Traditional dress for women usually consists of colorful embroidered long-sleeved tunic dresses worn over loose-fitting trousers.
An official in Tajikistan’s culture ministry told AFP it had developed new “recommendations on national dress for girls and women” which would be set out in a book published in July.
“Clothing is one of the key elements of national culture, which has been left to us from our ancestors and has retained its elegance and beauty throughout the centuries,” said Khurshed Nizomi, head of the ministry’s cultural institutions and folk craft department.
The book will be free at first, and will set out what women should wear “according to age,” as well as in various settings such as at home, at the theater,r or ceremonial events, Nizomi said.
Tajikistan has published similar books outlining women’s dress codes before, but this one “is superior to previous publications in terms of the quality of printing, the choice of photographs and texts, and historical sources,” Nizomi said.
The authorities in the officially secular country that shares a long border with Afghanistan have also sought to outlaw Islamic clothing in public life.
President Emomali Rahmon, in power since 1992, has called the wearing of the Islamic hijab a “problem for society,” with authorities calling on women to “dress in the Tajik way.”
The landlocked country, which shares language and cultural ties with Afghanistan, has de-facto banned the wearing of long beards to combat “religious extremism.”
Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, who has led Tajikistan since 1992, has been criticized for authoritarian-style rule and his regime’s poor human and civil rights records. Rahmon was criticized by opposition parties and foreign observers for unfair presidential elections in 1999 and 2006.
By Agence France-Presse – AFP
