Mission impossible: disguising a western woman in a chadari

"Thanks" to a high-profile assassination, my supervisor decided that I should have a chadari, just in case of emergency. While that might sound like a smart disguise, wearing it on the street for just a few minutes confirmed that any man who wasn't blind could spot from some hundred metres that I was a foreigner. That thing is by far the most difficult garment I ever had to put on, and that includes my kindergarten costume party outfits! Of course, not being comfortable in your clothes shows, so men walking by me on the street were staring even more than when I go out without it. Later I was told that it was the way I walk and carry my body that gave me away more than the jeans which were slightly visible underneath.

The anonymous women

A chadari is a traditional Afghan female garment, used to cover the entire body from head to toe, including the face, leaving only a small slit for the eyes, also covered by a net. It is usually a light-medium blue and has become quite famous from the pictures published in the western media during and immediately after the Taliban regime, becoming a symbol of the direct and structural violence perpetrated against women during these short but extremely brutal years. 

In addition to expelling women completely from public life – including trained professionals who were a pillar of the country’s economy – the Taliban regime imposed, under harsh punishments for transgressors, the obligation for each and every woman to wear a chadari when leaving the house. This effectively ensured that women, in those rare and limited instances when they stepped into the public space, would be completely indistinguishable from one another, blue identical ghosts who were not really individuals, did not have a face, nor feelings, hopes, professional skills.