<
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/aug/26/taliban-bar-on-afghan-women-speaking-in-public-un-afghanistan>
"New Taliban laws that prohibit women from speaking or showing their faces
outside their homes have been condemned by the UN and met with horror by human
rights groups.
The Taliban published a host of new “vice and virtue” laws last week, approved
by their supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, which state that women must
completely veil their bodies – including their faces – in thick clothing at all
times in public to avoid leading men into temptation and vice.
Women’s voices are also deemed to be potential instruments of vice and so will
not be allowed to be heard in public under the new restrictions. Women must
also not be heard singing or reading aloud, even from inside their houses.
“Whenever an adult woman leaves her home out of necessity, she is obliged to
conceal her voice, face, and body,” the new laws state.
Men will also be required to cover their bodies from their navels to their
knees when they are outside their homes.
From now on, Afghan women are also not allowed to look directly at men they
are not related to by blood or marriage, and taxi drivers will be punished if
they agree to drive a woman who is without a suitable male escort.
Women or girls who fail to comply can be detained and punished in a manner
deemed appropriate by Taliban officials charged with upholding the new laws.
The restrictions have been condemned by Roza Otunbayeva, the special UN’s
representative for Afghanistan, who has said they extend the “intolerable
restrictions” on the rights of women and girls already imposed by the Taliban
since they took power in August 2021.
“It is a distressing vision for Afghanistan’s future, where moral inspectors
have discretionary powers to threaten and detain anyone based on broad and
sometimes vague lists of infractions,” she said in a statement on Sunday. “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.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
