New morality law restricting women’s rights comes into force in Afghanistan

Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada has ordered Afghan officials to enact a sweeping new morality law curtailing women’s rights and enshrining an austere vision of Islamic society.

Taliban authorities last month announced the law, which includes rules that women’s faces, bodies and voices should be “covered” outside the home, among 35 articles dictating behaviour and lifestyle.

While many of the measures have been informally enforced since the Taliban’s takeover in 2021, their formal codification sparked an outcry from the international community and rights groups.

Akhundzada told civil and military officials “they should implement… the law of promoting virtue in society”, a statement by the Information and Culture Department of Faryab province said.

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The reclusive Akhundzada rules by decree from a hideout in southern Kandahar province but made the order in a rare trip to northern Faryab last week, according to the statement released on Sunday.

The new law prohibits women from raising their voices in public and requires them to cover their entire body and face if they need to leave their homes, which they should only do “out of necessity”.

Men’s behaviour and dress are also strictly regulated under the edict, which instructs them not to wear shorts above the knee or to trim their beards closely.

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Other parts of the law dictate prayer attendance as well as bans on keeping photos of living beings, homosexuality, animal fighting, playing music in public and non-Muslim holidays.

The law sets out graduated punishments that morality police are empowered to dole out, from verbal warnings to threats, fines and detentions of varying lengths.

The head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, called the law a “distressing vision for Afghanistan’s future”.

Akhundzada was in Faryab on Friday after visiting Badghis province in his first official visit to northern Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover, Faryab’s Department of Information and Culture head Shamsullah Mohammadi told AFP.