The Taliban has banned women from hearing other women’s voices in its latest attempt to restrict women in Afghanistan.
In a voice message on Monday, October 28, the country’s minister for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice announced the bizarre new restriction on women’s behaviour.
Although precise details of the Taliban’s ruling are unclear, Afghan human rights activists have warned it could mean women are effectively banned from holding conversations with one another.
In his message, minister Khalid Hanafi said: “Even when an adult female prays and another female passes by, she must not pray loudly enough for them to hear.”
“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.”
He said these are “new rules and will be gradually implemented, and God will be helping us in each step we take”.
As the Taliban has banned living beings from being shown on television, his message was delivered via voice recording instead of a television broadcast.
“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?” one activist said in response.
“Whatever he says is a form of mental torture for us,” an Afghan woman in Kabul told The Telegraph.
“Living 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.”
“They say we cannot hear other women’s voices, and I do not understand where these views come from,” she added.
Since taking power in Aug 2021, the Taliban has systematically restricted women’s rights in Afghanistan.
Women have already been ordered to cover their faces “to avoid temptation and tempting others” and refrain from speaking in the presence of unfamiliar men who are not husbands or close relatives.
“If it is necessary for women to leave their homes, they must cover their faces and voices from men” and be accompanied by a “male guardian”, according to the rules approved by the Taliban.
