Why Taliban has banned Afghan women from hearing each other’s voice

The Taliban have settled in as rulers of Afghanistan, three years after they seized power in 2021.

Even if they have strengthened domestic security and kept a faltering economy afloat, their numerous prohibitions on Afghan women and girls continue to make headlines.

In the latest increase in limitations, Afghan women are now forbidden from praying loudly or reciting the Quran in front of other women, according to a Taliban government minister.

The latest ban

Khalid Hanafi, the Taliban’s minister for virtue, has said it was forbidden for adult women to allow their voices to be heard, according to The Associated Press.

During an event in eastern Logar province on Sunday, Vice and Virtue Minister Khalid Hanafi said: “It is prohibited for a grown woman to recite Quranic verses or perform recitations in front of another grown woman. Even chants of takbir (Allahu Akbar) are not permitted.”

He said that uttering similar expressions like ‘Subhanallah’, another word central to the Islamic faith, was also not allowed. A woman was not permitted to perform the call to prayer, he told the gathering. “So, there is certainly no permission for singing.”

According to the minister, a woman’s voice is awrah, which means it needs to be covered and should not be heard in public, not even by other women.

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The audio of Hanafi’s remarks was shared on the Ministry’s social media platforms but was later deleted.

Human rights activists in Afghanistan have cautioned that it might essentially forbid women from speaking to one another.

“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 was quoted as saying by The Telegraph.

“Whatever he says is a form of mental torture for us,” an Afghan woman told the publication, adding, “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.”

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“They say we cannot hear other women’s voices, and I do not understand where these views come from,” she added.

The Ministry said Tuesday that a nationwide awareness programme about the laws is underway, involving Ministry officials at provincial and district levels.

“Organising such programmes will contribute to shaping public perception and increasing awareness of divine rulings,” the Ministry added.

Similar restrictions

Following their takeover of power in 2021, the Taliban established the Ministry for the “propagation of virtue and prevention of vice.”

The Ministry’s vice and virtue laws , which include things like public transport, music, shaving and festivities, were released earlier in August.

According to the 114-page, 35-article document, the Ministry is at the frontline of regulating personal conduct, administering punishments like warnings or arrest if enforcers allege that Afghans have broken the laws.

As per the document, it is mandatory for a woman to veil her body at all times in public and a face covering is essential to avoid temptation and tempting others. Clothing should not be thin, tight or short.

It also says women should veil themselves in front of all male strangers, including Muslims, and in front of all non-Muslims to avoid being corrupted.

It is also forbidden for women to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.

Article 17 bans the publication of images of living beings, threatening an already fragile Afghan media landscape. During their previous rule in the late 1990s, the Taliban banned most television, radio and newspapers altogether.

The Information Ministry announced it had banned 400 books that clashed with Islamic and Afghan values.

Additionally, the Taliban have outlawed the playing of music, the movement of solo women, and the mixing of unrelated men and women. Likewise, the regulation requires drivers and passengers to offer prayers at specified times.

Earlier this year, the Taliban restricted Afghan women’s access to work, travel and health care if they are unmarried or don’t have a male guardian who is related to her by blood or marriage.

In one incident, officials from the Vice and Virtue Ministry advised a woman to get married if she wanted to keep her job at a healthcare facility, saying it was inappropriate for an unwed woman to work. The Taliban have also forbidden female healthcare workers from meeting with their patient’s male companions.

The Taliban have also barred women from most areas of public life and stopped girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade as part of harsh measures.

They have also shut down beauty parlours and started enforcing a dress code, arresting women who don’t comply with their interpretation of hijab, or Islamic headscarf.

Moreover, women have also been arrested for buying contraceptives, which the Taliban had not officially banned.

It comes after the Taliban government recently announced legislation formalising their strict interpretations of Islamic law that have been imposed since they swept to power in 2021.

The reason behind harsh measures

The Taliban assert that they are dedicated to enforcing Sharia, or their version of Islamic law, throughout Afghanistan, as per The Associated Press.

Anything that they perceive as alien or secular, like women working or going to school, is thus completely excluded.

It is the driving force behind their initial takeover of power in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, and it has continued to do so since they regained authority on August 15, 2021.

Their supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has praised the changes imposed since the takeover, claiming life improved for Afghan women after foreign troops left and the hijab became mandatory again.

The Supreme Leader of the Taliban earlier had announced that the war against Western democracy would continue and has pledged to begin publicly stoning women to death.

In a voice message that was broadcast on state television in March, Akhundzada addressed Western officials, saying, “You say it is a violation of women’s rights when we stone them to death.”

“But we will soon implement the punishment for adultery. We will flog women in public. We will stone them to death in public,” he declared in his harshest comments since taking over Kabul in August 2021, according to The Telegraph, adding, “These are all against your democracy but we will continue doing it. We both say we defend human rights — we do it as God’s representative and you as the devil’s.”

International response to the bans

Foreign governments, rights groups, and global bodies have condemned the Taliban’s restrictions on women.

The UN earlier said they were a major obstacle to the Taliban gaining international recognition as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

In July this year, a UN report said the Ministry was contributing to a climate of fear and intimidation among Afghans through edicts and the methods used to enforce them.

It said the Ministry’s role was expanding into other areas of public life, including media monitoring and eradicating drug addiction.

“Given the multiple issues outlined in the report, the position expressed by the de facto authorities that this oversight will be increasing and expanding gives cause for significant concern for all Afghans, especially women and girls,” said Fiona Frazer, the head of the human rights service at the UN mission in Afghanistan.

The Taliban rejected the UN report.

With inputs from agencies