Afghan women ‘banned from hearing each other’ in bizarre new Taliban rule

Prohibition comes two months after the Taliban banned women’s voices in public spaces

The Taliban in Afghanistan have implemented a bizarre new edict that will further curb the voices of women who are already prohibited from speaking in public.

Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, the Taliban minister for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice, declared that women must refrain from reciting the Quran aloud in the presence of other women, reported Amu TV, an Afghan news channel based in Virginia, US.

“When women are not permitted to call takbir or athan [Islamic call to prayer], they certainly cannot sing songs or music,” he said in remarks reported on Saturday.

“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,” Mr Hanafi was also quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph.

A woman’s voice is considered awrah, meaning that which must be covered, and shouldn’t be heard in public, even by other women, the minister said.

Women, including human rights experts, fear this diktat would go beyond prayer and restrict them from holding conversations with each other, further minimising their social presence.

This comes just two months after the Taliban implemented a new set of laws in August that also ordered women to cover their entire bodies, including faces, when stepping out.

A midwife in Herat told Amu TV that Taliban officials forbid female healthcare workers, the last of the Afghan women allowed to work outside their homes, from speaking, especially with male relatives. “They don’t even allow us to speak at checkpoints when we go to work. And in the clinics, we are told not to discuss medical matters with male relatives,” the midwife, who has worked in remote healthcare clinics for eight years, told the channel.

It is not known whether the latest rule has been implemented or how widely.

The Taliban have increasingly curtailed women’s rights, even banning formal education for them, since they returned to power in 2021 after overthrowing the Nato-backed regime.

Mr Hanifi’s latest remarks have sparked a furore on social media.

“After banning women’s voices from public, the Taliban’s ministry of vice and virtue banned women from speaking to each other. I am in loss for words to express my utter rage and disgust about the Taliban’s mistreatment of women,” said journalist Lina Rozbih said. “The world must do something! Help millions of voiceless and helpless women of Afghanistan.”

“This surpasses misogyny,” said Nazifa Haqpal, a former Afghan diplomat. “It exemplifies an extreme level of control and absurdity,” she said.

Zubaida Akbar, a human rights and civil society activist from Afghanistan, called for the Taliban leaders to be held accountable for their “gender apartheid” diktats. “Today’s ban on women’s voices in each other’s presence comes from Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, Taliban’s minister of vice and virtue, who published a 100-plus page book of edicts against women last month,” she said on Twitter/X.

“Every ban on women has a face behind it and must be held accountable for gender apartheid,” she said.