The Taliban ‘bars Afghan women from hearing each other’s voices’, another brutal crackdown
- Women are forbidden from hearing the voices of other women
- The Taliban have been working on abolishing women’s rights since 2021
- Many fear that women will be effectively banned from speaking to each other
The Taliban have banned women from hearing the voices of other women, in their latest attempt to control and subjugate an entire gender in Afghanistan.
The new rule, announced on Monday, is expected to mean that women will now no longer be able to talk to each other.
Afghanistan’s Minister for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Khalid Hanafi, said: “Even if an adult woman is praying and another woman passes by, she should not pray loud enough for them to hear.”
“How could they sing if they are not even allowed to hear (each other’s) voices while praying, let alone for anything else.”
He said these are “new rules that will be implemented gradually, and God will help us every step of the way.”
Any woman who dares to break the new rules will be arrested and sent to prison, the terror group said.
Taliban security personnel stand guard as an Afghan burqa-clad woman (R) walks down a street at a market in the Baharak district of Badakhshan province on February 26, 2024
A group of Afghan women dressed in burqas walk to a market in Ghazni, August 4, 2007
Taliban security officials stand guard as they check people and vehicles at a checkpoint in Kabul, Afghanistan, September 13, 2024
Since the terror group took control of the country in August 2021, following the heavily criticized US departure, the Taliban have worked to chip away at women’s rights. According to the UN, more than 70 decrees, guidelines, declarations and systematized practices have focused on what women can and cannot do.
Women are already forbidden to speak 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 the enticement of others,” and are not allowed to speak when unknown men who are not husbands or close relatives are present.
“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 rules approved by the Taliban’s supreme leader.
A former Afghan official told the Telegraph of her despondency.
“They (the Taliban) are waging an all-out war against us, and we have no one in the world to hear our voices.
Afghan women wearing burqa at the market in Andkhoy, Faryab province, Northern Afghanistan
Afghan women wearing burqas walk down a street in Kandahar on September 3, 2024
‘The world has failed us. They left us to the Taliban, and what is happening to us now is a result of Western government policies.
‘I feel depressed. The world is moving forward in technology and having fun in their lives, but here we can’t even hear each other’s voice.”
Another woman told the newspaper: ‘They don’t want us to exist at all, and there’s nothing we can do about that.
‘Maybe they will succeed at some point, because many take their own lives under the pressure.
“They think governing Afghanistan is just about oppressing women; we have committed no crime by being born women.”
The UN reported that only 1% of women believe they have influence in their community, and only nearly one in 10 women knows someone else who has attempted suicide since the Taliban took power.
Additionally, almost one in five women said they had not spoken to another woman outside their immediate family in three months.