Has the Taliban banned women from speaking?

'Rambling' message about 'bizarre' restriction joins series of recent decrees that amount to silencing of Afghanistan's women

Women in Afghanistan sit together in a semi-circle with their bodies and faces covered by burkas
The Taliban announced laws in August forbidding women from speaking in public, talking loudly indoors and speaking to men outside their families
(Image credit: Toby Melville / Pool / Getty Images)

Afghanistan's minister for vice and virtue announced a "bizarre new restriction" this week which appears to ban women from speaking to each other, said The Daily Telegraph. "Even when an adult female prays and another female passes by, she must not pray loudly enough for them to hear," Khalid Hanafi said in an audio clip released on Monday.

He also reiterated an earlier decree forbidding women from singing, saying: "How could they be allowed to sing if they aren't even permitted to hear [each other's] voices while praying?"

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Harriet Marsden is a writer for The Week, mostly covering UK and global news and politics. Before joining the site, she was a freelance journalist for seven years, specialising in social affairs, gender equality and culture. She worked for The Guardian, The Times and The Independent, and regularly contributed articles to The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The New Statesman, Tortoise Media and Metro, as well as appearing on BBC Radio London, Times Radio and “Woman’s Hour”. She has a master’s in international journalism from City University, London, and was awarded the "journalist-at-large" fellowship by the Local Trust charity in 2021.