Outrage over the Taliban's 'dystopian' laws for women

Activists lament distressing vision’ for Afghanistan’s future

- MAROOSHA MUZAFFAR

The Taliban’s “dystopian” new laws that forbid women from speaking or showing any part of their bodies in public have sparked anger among human rights activists, who say they will worsen the gender apartheid enforced by the country’s hardline Islamist rulers.

Last week the Taliban introduced the country’s first set of official rules aimed at “preventing vice and promoting virtue” since their takeover of the country in 2021. The regulations, approved by Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, require women to cover their bodies and faces fully with thick clothing in public.

Under the new laws, women are not allowed to let their voices be heard in public, even from within their own homes, including by singing or reading aloud. Women are also forbidden from looking directly at men who are not direct members of their family, and taxi drivers can be punished for transporting women without a male escort.

Roza Otunbayeva, who heads the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said on Sunday the laws provided a “distressing vision” for Afghanistan’s future. “It extends the already intolerable restrictions on the rights of Afghan women and girls, with even the sound of a female voice outside the home apparently deemed a moral violation.”