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The Taliban government in Afghanistan has passed new lifestyle laws banning women from looking at men they are not related to while also banning their voices and faces in public.
Under the new laws meant to promote ‘virtue’ in Afghanistan, according to the Associated Press, women are forbidden from looking at men, wearing tight dresses or singing in public to avoid tempting the men.
The Islamist group had set up a ministry for the ‘prevention of vice’ after seizing power following the withdrawal of the United States and coalition forces in 2021.
Two days ago, officials of the Afghan government published its 114-page vice and virtue rulebook that covers aspects of everyday life such as public transport, music, shaving and celebrations.
The laws, which have been approved by supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, made it compulsory for all women to cover their bodies in public and that face coverings are essential to ‘avoid temptation and tempting others’.
Clothing should not be thin, tight, or short, and failure to adhere could result in arrest, and said the new law.
Under the law, a woman’s voice is deemed intimate and so should not be heard singing, reciting poetry, or reading aloud in public.
The law forbids women to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.
The law also bans music, women travelling alone, and men and women socialising together unless they are related to each other.
Fiona Frazer, head of the human rights service at the UN mission in Afghanistan, complained that the position expressed by the de facto authorities in Afghanistan that this oversight will be increasing and expanding gives cause for significant concern for all Afghans, especially women and girls.’
