Ghan Fashion carries traditional clothing from Afghanistan, covering all the provinces and ethnic groups, mainly bought by Australians from Afghanistan for special occasions. The label also has contemporary designs that feature traditional embroidery on more Western clothing.

Ms Mangal said it was upsetting to see the Taliban introduce the black burqa once again.

“It’s not my culture and I will never wear it,” she said. “Our forefathers, from generation to generation, introduced this beautiful, colourful costume, and we are proud of that.”

Ms Mangal said the women of Afghanistan had risen in the years without the Taliban, gaining higher education and becoming teachers, judges, lawyers, doctors, nurses and businesswomen. Now jobless, they have mostly fallen into poverty and many former breadwinners were now begging on the streets or wearing the burqa while trying to sell goods at the market.

Ms Mangal said it was important to remember that the Taliban regime was forced upon the people of Afghanistan, not elected, and urged the international community not to recognise the Taliban regime until they allowed women in their parliament and respected women’s rights to education, work and freedom of speech.

Ms Mangal also joined calls for the Australian government to increase the humanitarian intake from Afghanistan and speed up the process, which was lagging other countries. She said Australia had a clear responsibility to do more, given its military involvement.

She knew of many people who had worked with the Australian forces who were still in Afghanistan in a very dangerous situation, and others on humanitarian visas who had been forced to leave immediate family, including young children, behind.

Immigration Minister Alex Hawke announced earlier this month that Australia would allocate 15,000 humanitarian places to people from Afghanistan over four years. However, this was roundly condemned by refugee advocacy groups as inadequate.

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The Department of Home Affairs reports the humanitarian program was on hold from March to December 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in only 5947 of 13,750 places being filled in 2020-2021. Of those, 562 humanitarian visas were granted to people from Afghanistan, out of 3586 individual applications.

Since the fall of Kabul, the Department of Home Affairs has received 32,500 applications for protection on behalf of 145,000 people from Afghanistan.

Barat Ali Batoor, a Hazara man from Afghanistan and an organiser at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, said: “It has been more than six months since the fall of Kabul and the response of the government has been extremely little.”

Mr Batoor said Australia should prioritise helping groups targeted by the Taliban, including women protesting the new regime, journalists, and ethnic and religious minorities such as the Hazaras.

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He added that there were more than 5000 people on temporary protection visas who had been in Australia for more than 10 years and had immediate family members trapped in Afghanistan. Because of their visa status, they were nearly always unsuccessful in sponsoring their family members and were also not allowed to travel to Afghanistan to visit and help them.

The rationale for temporary protection visas is that people may be able to return to their countries of origin when circumstances improve. Given the Taliban was back in power, Mr Batoor said this did not apply and people with temporary protection visas deserved permanency.