Additional Coverage:
- Taliban’s ‘dystopian’ new rules banning Afghan women from speaking in public widely condemned (newsbreak.com)
The Taliban’s introduction of stringent new regulations, which prevent women from speaking or revealing any part of their bodies in public, has ignited widespread condemnation from human rights groups. These critics argue that the rules exacerbate the already oppressive gender segregation imposed by Afghanistan’s extremist Islamist leadership.
Implemented last week, these decrees represent the first official set of guidelines promoting “prevention of vice and promotion of virtue” since the Taliban reclaimed control of Afghanistan in 2021. Compiled into a 114-page document consisting of 35 articles, the rules mandate that women completely cover themselves with thick garments while in public and prohibit women from making their voices audible, even within the confines of their homes. The guidelines extend to barring women from direct eye contact with non-family male members and punish taxi drivers for transporting women unaccompanied by a male escort.
Roza Otunbayeva, leader of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, expressed her concerns on Sunday, describing the regulations as a grim forecast for the future of Afghanistan—further tightening the grip on the already severely limited rights of Afghan women and girls.
Punishments for transgressing these laws range from verbal admonitions and warnings of divine retribution to property confiscation and brief detentions. Heather Barr and Sahar Fetrat of Human Rights Watch emphasized in Zan Times that these are not scenarios from a dystopian narrative but the current realities in Afghanistan, where the suppression of women and girls is intensifying.
Despite global disapproval, the Taliban remains unyielding, with spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid urging critics to respect their interpretation of Islamic values and dismissing the backlash as arrogant. The Taliban’s stringent interpretation of Islamic law has now led to extensive restrictions on women, including barring girls aged over 11 from education and women from most public engagements and job opportunities.
Echoing the severity of the situation, a Kabul resident conveyed to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the Taliban’s actions are systematically erasing women from societal roles. Similarly, Afghan human rights activist Fawzia Koofi told The Guardian that the Taliban’s policies reflect a profound disdain for women—equating their voices in public to a form of intimacy and normalizing such extreme repression globally.