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Taliban Bans Women From ‘Hearing Other Women’s Voices’

Published on October 29, 2024

The Taliban’s most recent attempt to impose restrictions on women in Afghanistan has prohibited them from hearing the voices of other women.

The strange new restriction on women’s behavior was announced by the nation’s minister for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice in an audio message on Monday, October 28.

The specifics of the Taliban’s decision are unknown, but human rights advocates in Afghanistan have cautioned that it may essentially forbid women from speaking to 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 prohibits the depiction of living humans on television, his message was given by voice recording rather than 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.

The Taliban has consistently imposed restrictions on women’s rights in Afghanistan since seizing power in August 2021.

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’s supreme leader.

In order to keep their voices from being heard outside, Afghan women have also been told not to talk loudly inside their homes.

The Taliban threatened to arrest and imprison women who disobey the new regulations.

The top leader of the Taliban has also promised to begin publicly stoning women to death.

“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 told The Telegraph from Kabul.

“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