Taliban bans women from hearing voices of other women: report
The Taliban has passed a measure banning women from being heard by other women in public, in the latest curb on human rights since the Biden administration withdrew U.S. forces from Afghanistan three years ago.
The Telegraph reports that Taliban official Khalid Hanafi announced the new measure, the specifics of which remain unclear.
“Even when an adult female prays and another female passes by, she must not pray loudly enough for them to hear,” stated Hanafi, according to The Telegraph.
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“How could they be allowed to sing if they aren’t even permitted to hear [each other’s] voices while praying, let alone for anything else.”
The Telegraph quoted an unnamed human rights activist who asked, how “are women who are the sole providers for their families supposed to buy bread, seek medical care or simply exist if even their voices are forbidden?”
The outlet also quoted an unnamed woman living in Kabul who said the words of Hanafi are “a form of mental torture for us” and that life in Afghanistan “is incredibly painful for us as women.”
“Afghanistan is forgotten, and that’s why they are suppressing us – they are torturing us on a daily basis,” she added. “They say we cannot hear other women’s voices, and I do not understand where these views come from.”
In August 2021, nearly 20 years after the U.S. and its allies overthrew the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the Biden administration pulled out its troops out of the Central Asian country, to the surprises of Afghans and allies.
Amid the withdrawal, Taliban forces waged a rapid reconquest of Afghanistan, which resulted in a chaotic evacuation of thousands of Afghans and the death of 13 American soldiers killed in a bombing at the Kabul airport.
Although President Joe Biden promised to use "economic tools" to help protect human rights in Afghanistan, the Taliban continue to enact a strict form of Sharia law with apparent impunity.
In August, for example, the Taliban passed several “vice and virtue” laws, ordering Afghan women to, among other things, cover their faces while outside their homes, stop speaking in public, and be accompanied by a man if they go out.
“This is utterly intolerable,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a statement in response to the laws being passed.
“We call on the de facto authorities to immediately repeal this legislation, which is in clear violation of Afghanistan’s obligations under international human rights law."
