Afghan women banned from ‘hearing each other’ as Taliban’s latest rule 'surpasses misogyny' and silences women’s voices

By EJ Ward

The Taliban has intensified its repressive policies, banning women from hearing each other's voices in public or private settings, alongside broader censorship of media and literature.

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This latest measure, announced by Afghanistan’s minister for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, Khalid Hanafi, adds to an existing string of draconian rules aimed at controlling Afghan women.

It comes just two months after the Taliban banned women’s voices in public spaces

In a voice message, Hanafi declared that even during prayers, a woman’s voice should not be audible to other women, raising concerns among activists that such laws could isolate women even further, preventing them from engaging in conversation or forming support networks.

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In his message, minister Khalid Hanafi said: “Even when an adult female prays and another female passes by, she must not pray loudly enough for them to hear.”

“How could they be allowed to sing if they aren’t even permitted to hear [each other’s] voices while praying, let alone for anything else.”

He said these are “new rules and will be gradually implemented, and God will be helping us in each step we take”.

“They want us not to exist at all,” said one Afghan woman from Herat, reflecting the despair many feel under the Taliban’s escalating restrictions.

These restrictions have reportedly led to an increase in suicides among women under the unbearable strain of enforced isolation.

Concurrently, the Taliban has issued a mandate forbidding the display of any images of living beings in the media. The Information Ministry in Helmand province announced that images of humans and animals are now prohibited in publications and broadcasts, adding to bans in other provinces, including Takhar and Kandahar.

This extension of the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic law comes with the removal of an estimated 400 books, allegedly aimed at “destroying the thought, faith, unity, and culture” of Afghanistan.

The confiscated materials have been replaced with religious texts, reflecting an increasingly severe clampdown on cultural expression.

A midwife in Herat told Amu TV that Taliban officials forbid female healthcare workers, the last of the Afghan women allowed to work outside their homes, from speaking, especially with male relatives.

“They don’t even allow us to speak at checkpoints when we go to work. And in the clinics, we are told not to discuss medical matters with male relatives,” the midwife, who has worked in remote healthcare clinics for eight years, told the channel.

“This surpasses misogyny,” said Nazifa Haqpal, a former Afghan diplomat. “It exemplifies an extreme level of control and absurdity,” she said.

The Taliban has decreed that Afghan women are forbidden to:

• Go to high school or university
• Work in the civil service
• Attend a protest
• Go abroad
• Drive a car
• Travel alone
• Ride in a taxi
• Speak in public
• Speak loudly inside your house
• Sing
• Read the Quran aloud in public
• Speak to a male doctor
• Play sport
• Go to the gym
• Go to the park
• Wear bright clothes
• Wear high heels
• Look at men they don’t know
• Show their faces in public
• Own a smartphone

The mounting restrictions have led to divisions within the Taliban itself, with some officials expressing concern over the impact of extreme policies on public tolerance.

A senior Taliban official warned of potential repercussions, fearing that should a viable alternative to the Taliban emerge, public dissent could turn violent.

The current approach has bred an atmosphere of fear and isolation, with human rights advocates warning that Afghan women are effectively cut off from the outside world and each other.