Taliban Prohibits Women from ‘Hearing Other Women’s Voices’

The Taliban has imposed a ban preventing women from hearing other women’s voices in its latest effort to further restrict women’s rights in Afghanistan.

In a voice message on Monday, October 28, the country’s minister for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice announced this unusual new restriction on women’s behavior.

While the precise details of the Taliban’s ruling remain unclear, Afghan human rights activists have warned that it could effectively mean women are banned from holding conversations with each other.

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”.

Since the Taliban has banned the depiction of living beings on television, the message was delivered via voice recording rather than through a televised 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 said.

“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 August 2021, the Taliban has systematically restricted women’s rights in Afghanistan.

Women have been mandated to cover their faces “to avoid temptation and tempting others,” and are prohibited from speaking in the presence of unfamiliar men who are not their husbands or close relatives.

According to rules approved by the Taliban’s supreme leader, “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.”

Afghan women have been instructed not to speak loudly inside their homes to prevent their voices from being heard outside.

The Taliban has stated that women who defy these new rules will be arrested and imprisoned. Additionally, the Taliban’s supreme leader has vowed to implement stoning as a punishment for women in public.

“They [the Taliban] are waging an all-out war against us, and we have no one in the world to hear our voices,” a former civil servant living in Kabul said.

“The world has abandoned us,” she added. “They left us to the Taliban, and whatever happens to us now is a result of Western government policies.”

“I feel depressed. The world is advancing in technology and having fun with their lives, but here we cannot even hear each other’s voices,” she said.

“They want us not to exist at all, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” another woman in western Herat province said.

“They may succeed at some point, as many are taking their lives due to the pressure,” she added

“They think ruling Afghanistan is only about suppressing women – we didn’t commit a crime by being born as women,” she said.

Below are some of the things the Taliban has said Afghan women are not allowed to do:

1.Drive a car

2.Speak in public

3.Speak loudly inside your house

4. Travel alone

4. Own a smartphone

6. Wear bright clothes

7. Wear high-heels

8. Go to high school or university

9. Sing

10. Read the Quran aloud in public

11. Look at men they don’t know

12. Attend a protest

13. Go to the gym

14. Go to the park

15. Work in the civil service

16. Ride in a taxi

17. Go abroad

18. Show their faces in public

19. Speak to a male doctor

20. Play sport