- Women have been prohibited from hearing other women’s voices.
- The Taliban have been stripping women of their rights since 2021
- Many fear that women will essentially be prohibited from speaking to each other.
The Taliban have banned women from hearing other women’s voices, in their latest attempt to control and subjugate an entire gender in Afghanistan.
Announced on Monday, there are fears the new rule will mean women will no longer be able to talk to each other.
Afghan Minister for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Khalid Hanafi, said: “Even when an adult woman prays and another woman passes by, she should not pray loud enough to be heard.”
‘How could they be allowed to sing if they are not even allowed to hear (others’) voices while praying, let alone for anything else?’
He said these are ‘new rules and they will be implemented gradually, and God will be helping us every step of the way.’
Any woman who dares to violate the new rules will be arrested and sent to prison, the terrorist group said.
Taliban security personnel stand guard as a burqa-clad Afghan woman (right) walks down a street in a market in the Baharak district of Badakhshan province on February 26, 2024.
A group of Afghan women dressed in burqas walk towards a market in Ghazni, August 4, 2007.
Taliban security officials stand guard while screening people and vehicles at a checkpoint, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on September 13, 2024.
Since the terrorist group took control of the nation in August 2021, following the widely criticized departure of the United States, the Taliban has worked to strip women of their rights. According to the UN, more than 70 decrees, directives, declarations and systematized practices have focused on what women can and cannot do.
Women have already been prohibited from speaking loudly in their own homes and are not allowed to be heard outside.
Women are also ordered to cover their faces “to avoid temptation and tempt others,” and are prohibited from speaking if unknown men other than husbands or close relatives are present.
‘If it is necessary for women to leave their homes, they must cover their men’s faces and voices’ and be accompanied by a ‘male guardian’, according to rules approved by the supreme leader of the Taliban.
A former Afghan official expressed her despondency to the Telegraph.
‘They (Taliban) are waging an all-out war against us and we have no one in the world to hear our voices.
Afghan women dressed in burqa at the Andkhoy market, Faryab province, northern Afghanistan
Afghan women dressed in burqas walk down a street in Kandahar on September 3, 2024
‘The world has abandoned us. They left us in the hands of the Taliban, and whatever happens to us now is a result of the policies of Western governments.
‘I feel depressed. The world advances in technology and has fun with their lives, but here we can’t even hear each other’s voices.’
Another woman told the newspaper: ‘They want us to not exist at all and there is nothing we can do about it.
‘They may get it at some point as many are taking their own lives due to the pressure.
“They believe that governing Afghanistan is just about repressing women; we did not commit a crime by being born as women.”
The UN reported that only 1% of women believe they have influence in their communities, and that only nearly one in 10 women knows another woman who has attempted suicide since the Taliban took power.
On top of this, almost one in five women said they had not spoken to another woman outside their immediate family in three months.
