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Nearly three years to the day since the US withdrew all troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban – a terrorist organization that took control of the Afghan government – has implemented a new law that prohibits all women from speaking or singing outside of their own homes.
Since August 31, 2021, women in Afghanistan have been subjected to a string of restrictions that strictly limit their rights as citizens. It began with the exclusion of girls aged 12 and above from attending school. Subsequent rules have been installed to prevent women from showing any part of their bodies or faces.
Now, The Guardian reports that new rules have come after the Taliban’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada approved of a set of “vice and virtue” laws last week. Included among them is a reiteration of the rule that states women must keep covered up at all times in public “to avoid leading men into temptation and vice.”
Furthermore, women’s voices have been deemed to have a great potential to lead men to sin, therefore they are no longer to be heard. Women in Afghanistan are also not allowed to look at a man who is not related by blood or marriage. Even a simple taxi ride could land both the woman and the driver in hot water if she is not accompanied by a “suitable male escort.”
“Whenever an adult woman leaves her home out of necessity, she is obliged to conceal her voice, face, and body,” the new laws state.
The Guardian report does note that the new law restricts men from exposing any skin from their navel to their knees. Vatican News paints a picture of an Orwellian society in which one walks down the street only hearing male voices.
If a mother needs to calm her crying baby in public, she’d better not sing to the child or she may face punishment “in a manner deemed appropriate by Taliban officials,” and if she must speak it would be just a whisper. The report makes no mention of exceptions made for emergency situations.
Pope Francis spoke out against the discrimination against women in Afghanistan in early August.
"The force of law" must prevail over "the law of force," he said as he addressed a delegation from the Afghan community in Italy on August 7, 2024.
President of the Afghan Lawyers Association Mir Abdul Wahid Sadat noted that the new rules not only violate Afghanistan’s domestic laws, but they run afoul of “all 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” He lamented that so few voices on the world stage have taken a stand against the egregious new rules set by the Taliban:
“When they say women cannot speak in public as they regard women’s voices as a form of intimacy it is incredibly frightening yet the whole world acts like this is normal. There have been very few reactions or comments to what is happening and the Taliban are emboldened by this indifference. It is not only women but all human beings they are targeting. They must be held accountable.”
