Afghanistan making photos on women’s national ID cards optional

Afghanistan is making photos on women’s national ID cards optional, the Taliban government has proclaimed, noting that religious scholars have deemed photos of women contrary to Sharia law.

The decision was announced last week after a decree issued by the Taliban’s religious authority, Dar al-Ifta, and overrides previous photo requirements by the National Statistics and Information Authority (NSIA).

The statistics agency has attempted to argue that photographs on ID are necessary for identity verification, fraud prevention, easier travel and international standards compliance. The Dar al-Ifta, however, has declared that most arguments for attaching women’s photos to ID cards were “un-Islamic.”

International travel already required passports and visas, making ID cards unnecessary, says the Islamic body. Photos on ID cards would be mandatory only for Afghan women living abroad or travelling overseas for medical care. For legal matters, a woman’s name and address alongside the name of her father and grandfather is sufficient, TV news station Afghanistan International reports.

Women’s rights advocates criticized the decision, saying that it represents another step in the systematic erasure of Afghan women from public life. Since taking over the country in 2021, the Taliban have targeted women and girls by issuing bans on education, prohibitions on employment and restrictions on movement without a male guardian.

“This is an attempt to render Afghan women invisible,” a member of the Afghanistan Justice-Seeking Women’s Movement told news outlet Kabul Now. “A woman’s identity is not negotiable. The Taliban cannot erase us by removing our images from official documents.”

Afghanistan issues 16M eIDs

Afghanistan has issued 16 million electronic identity cards since the country started issuing the national IDs in 2018, according to last week’s data from the National Information and Statistics Authority.

“Since the start of the issuance of the national ID in 2018, more than 16 million Afghans have received electronic national identity cards and out of these, more than 10 million received over the past four years during the current government,” says NSIA spokesperson Mohammad Halim Rafi, as quoted by news agency Xinhua.

The country’s population is estimated at over 40 million.

NSIA is currently discussing opening more facilities for distributing electronic ID cards and implementing statistical surveys.

The agency has also announced it has provided more than 3,700 national identity documents, known as Tazkirahs, to Afghans living abroad. In July, the government opened an electronic ID card distribution center in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and plans to open similar centers in other countries.

Article Topics

Afghanistan  |  digital ID  |  e-ID  |  face photo  |  identity document  |  national ID  |  National Statistics and Information Authority (NSIA)