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Committees would ensure brides are modestly dressed and male and female guests do not mix under a new law There is an awful lot of flesh on display at Qasre Aros in central Kabul. Arms and shoulders are free to the elements, while necklines plunge daringly low on garish ballgowns made of every shade of synthetic material imaginable and encrusted with fake jewels. Though the skin may be the orangey plastic of the dozens of mannequins lining the walls, the dresses are worn every night by real Afghan brides. But the days when brides-to-be would flock to the shops of central Kabul’s Shar-e-Now Park may be numbered. Conservative elements of Hamid Karzai’s government are pushing for far-reaching restrictions on weddings the likes of which have not been seen since the Taliban regime. Under a new law proposed by the country’s justice ministry and soon to be considered by Karzai’s cabinet, “garments contrary to Islamic sharia” will be banned. Those dealing in “outfits that are semi-naked, naked, transparent, or tight in a way that reveals part of the woman’s body” will be fined and, if they persist, closed down. When plans to regulate Afghanistan’s booming wedding industry were announced earlier in the year, the government said it merely wanted to curb the country’s mania for lavish weddings that drag people into serious debt. But according to drafts of the law seen by the Guardian, the government is also aiming to introduce various public morality provisions in yet another sign of the casual erosion of the small freedoms women have won since 2001. And in an echo of the Taliban regime, which used to police weddings to ensure they complied with hardline rulings including a ban on music, the government also intends to set up “committees” to monitor weddings. The groups, which will include representatives of the religious affairs ministry, will be expected to patrol private ceremonies held in the garish, multistorey wedding halls on the edge of Kabul that light up the night sky with their elaborate neon facades. Among their duties will be ensuring male and female guests do not mix in the same rooms – already a standard practice in most Afghan weddings – and that the bride is modestly attired. Muhiuddin Alizada, the owner of Qasre Aros, looked bewildered when he was shown a copy of the draft law for the first time this week. “This is pointless because the mullahs will not be happy unless the women are wearing burqas,” he said. “It is all because of pressure from the Taliban.” Human rights activists are similarly aghast. “A number of experts who have looked at the draft law are of the view that it interferes with private family life and could well be inconsistent with sharia principles and the constitution,” said Georgette Gagnon, the UN director of human rights in Afghanistan. Other shopkeepers were more understanding, even though none of them had a single item of stock that was “sharia compliant”. “We are Muslims and women should dress modestly,” said Muhammad Shah, a young entrepreneur whose shop is packed full of brightly coloured dresses that look all the more lurid under the pink fluorescent bulbs of the shop. But moments later he concluded that there was no way such a law could be enforced. “Even during the Taliban regimes people were still wearing these types of dresses,” said Shah. “Gambling is haram but the government can’t even stop that.” Sadia, a 26-year-old who got married on Thursday, was outraged by the idea that the government might try to stop her wearing the white, bare-shouldered glittery creation she chose for her wedding. “When I’m wearing this dress I feel very beautiful. Why shouldn’t I wear it?” she told the Guardian during a four-hour session in a beauty parlour on the morning of her wedding. “If I don’t wear it people will think I have a very bad husband who says I cannot wear these things. This is a day I will remember all my life and every girl is hoping to wear these clothes.” Under the proposed law, not only would she have to be more frumpily attired, she would also have to go for something far cheaper. The government wants to impose a maximum spend on wedding dresses of just over $100. Alizada says his cheapest frock is $222, a dowdy thing that has been used more than four times. Most brides rent their dresses, paying anything between $200 and $400. If they buy they have to pay more than $1,000. The law also bans large parties in wedding halls to celebrate the many other ceremonies associated with an Afghan wedding including henna night, engagement, and a post-wedding event known as Takht Jami. Wedding guests will be limited to 300 and selections of food will be regulated by local government officials to ensure no more than $5 is spent per person. The erosion of women’s freedoms Afghanistan’s restriction on low-cut wedding dresses is the latest government initiative to alarm human rights activists. Last year the supreme court instructed judges to jail women who run away from home, while another draft regulation sought to transfer the management of women’s shelters from charities to the government. Social conservatives have also been flexing their political muscles in ways rarely noted by local or international media. Musa Khan, the governor of Ghazni province, once associated with the fundamentalist warlord Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, marked international women’s day on 8 March. Unfortunately, he appeared to have missed the point of the event. According to Alex Dietrich, the head of a US military female engagement team operating in Ghazni, in a morning of speeches, only two women were invited onstage to participate. Instead ranks of burqa-clad women watched a group of men dominate proceedings with speeches on the importance of practising marital obedience. Khan told them they should not leave their homes without permission from their husbands. “At the end the men sat down for a feast, while the women waited outside in the cold for some of their leftovers,” Dietrich said. This week the deputy governor of Helmand was sacked by President Hamid Karzai after elders objected to a successful concert in the once warring provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, which was attended by 12,000 people. Their objection: some of the female singers performed without headscarves. Afghanistan Weddings Women Gender Jon Boone guardian.co.uk