Taliban bans women from ‘hearing each other’s voices’

Militant group is ‘waging an all-out war against us’, says one Kabul resident in response to the bizarre rule

The Taliban has banned women from hearing other women’s voices in its latest attempt to impose a hardline version of Islamic law on Afghanistan.

In a rambling voice message on Monday, the country’s minister for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice announced the bizarre new restriction on women’s behaviour.

Although precise details of the Taliban’s ruling are unclear, Afghan human rights activists have warned it could mean women are effectively banned from holding conversations with 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 has banned living beings from being shown on television, his message was delivered via voice recording instead of a television broadcast.

Recommended

“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.

Since taking power in Aug 2021, the Taliban has systematically restricted women’s rights in Afghanistan.

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.

Afghan women have also been ordered not to speak loudly inside their homes, to prevent their voices from being heard outside.

Women who defy the new rules will be arrested and sent to prison, the Taliban said.

In July 2024, a UN report said the ministry for promoting virtue and preventing vice was contributing to a climate of fear and intimidation among Afghans through its edicts and the methods used to enforce them.

The Taliban’s supreme leader has also vowed to start stoning women to death in public.

“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.

The increased restrictions imposed by the Taliban’s supreme leader have caused discord within the Taliban’s own ranks.

A senior Taliban official told The Telegraph of frustration from moderates with the more hardline elements of the regime.

“Someone should stop the supreme leader. Many within the Taliban are angry and worried that, with everything the leadership is doing, we could lose Afghanistan as quickly as we took it,” he added.

“They are worried that as soon as an alternative to the Taliban appears, the people will revolt, and the West will bomb us again,” the official explained.