Taliban bans Afghan women from looking at men they don’t know

A group of volunteers educates Afghan girls of middle and high school age, who are not allowed to have education under Taliban rule, in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Photo / Getty Images

Afghanistan’s Taliban has banned women from looking at men and speaking loudly in public and inside their homes.

In a 114-page document of new orders seen by The Telegraph, the regime announced strict measures governing everyday life for Afghan citizens.

“It is forbidden for adult women to look at strange men,” according to one of the new rules.

Women have also 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, for example, husbands or relatives.

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

“The international community’s engagement with the Taliban has emboldened them to further suppress women,” Zainab, a former civil servant said from the capital Kabul.

“These are radical individuals in power who refuse to acknowledge our existence.”

The new rules, which have mostly targeted female behaviour, make it mandatory for a woman to cover her body at all times in public.

“If it is necessary for women to leave their homes, they must cover their faces and voices from men,” according to the new rules, approved by the Taliban’s supreme leader.

In addition, women have been banned from singing or reading the Koran in public and their clothing must not be thin, tight or short.

Arrested and sent to prison

Taxi drivers have been instructed not to transport “women without a hijab or those without an adult male guardian”.

Playing music in vehicles and allowing the mixing of women with men is explicitly listed among the prohibited actions.

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

Men are also banned from looking at women’s faces in public and wearing tight or short clothing while “they are in public or exercising sports”. They are also barred from trimming and shaving their beards.

The new rules have sparked an outrage among Afghan women who have already been banned from working with aid agencies, entering parks, and subjected to restricted travel without a male guardian among other restrictions.

Girls over the age of 12 have also been excluded from education since the Taliban’s return to power.

‘A massive cage called Afghanistan’

Zainab, who was one of many women who lost their jobs after the Taliban resumed control of the country in 2021, said: “They’ve essentially created a massive cage for us called Afghanistan. I’m very concerned about what lies ahead”.

“They’ve threatened to prosecute women without hijabs but they haven’t clarified what type of hijab they consider acceptable.”

“They’re arresting women on the streets and pulling them out of taxis if they’re not accompanied by a male guardian.”

The Taliban set up its “ministry for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice” in the premises of the former women’s affairs department in 2021.

Last month, a UN report said the ministry was contributing to a climate of fear and intimidation among Afghans through edicts and the methods used to enforce them.

It said the ministry’s role was expanding into other areas of public life, including media monitoring and eradicating drug addiction.

“They’re dragging us back to the Stone Age,” Zainab said. “Society is no longer normal.”