Afghanistan | New laws extend ‘already intolerable restrictions’ on women and girls

(Islamabad) The Taliban’s new laws on vice and virtue, which include bans on women’s voices and uncovering their faces in public, offer a “worrying vision” for Afghanistan’s future, a senior UN official warned on Sunday.

Roza Otunbayeva, who heads the UN mission in the country, said the laws extend “already intolerable restrictions” on the rights of women and girls, with “even the sound of a female voice” outside the home apparently considered a moral violation.

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Wednesday issued the country’s first set of laws aimed at preventing vice and promoting virtue. They include requiring a woman to conceal her face, body and voice outside the home.

The laws give the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Suppression of Vice the power to regulate personal conduct and administer punishments such as warnings or arrests if its officials believe Afghans have broken the laws.

“After decades of war and in the midst of a terrible humanitarian crisis, the Afghan people deserve far better than being threatened or imprisoned for being late for prayers, for glancing at a member of the opposite sex who is not a family member, or for possessing a photograph of a loved one,” Mr.^me Otunbayeva.

The mission said it was studying the newly ratified law and its implications for Afghans, as well as its potential impact on U.N. and other forms of humanitarian assistance.

Taliban officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the U.N. criticism.

In remarks broadcast by state television channel RTA on Sunday, Minister of Promotion of Virtue and Suppression of Vice Mohammad Khaled Hanafi said that no one had the right to violate women’s rights based on inappropriate customs.

“We are committed to ensuring all rights of women based on Islamic law and anyone who has a complaint in this regard will be heard and resolved,” he added.

Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada said last year that Afghan women enjoyed “comfortable and prosperous” lives, despite decrees barring them from many public spaces, education and most jobs.

The UN has already said it is virtually impossible to officially recognise the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan while restrictions on women and girls remain.

Although no country recognizes the Taliban, many states in the region have ties to them.

Last Wednesday, the United Arab Emirates accepted the credentials of the Taliban’s ambassador to the oil-rich Gulf Arab state.

A UAE official said the decision reaffirmed the government’s determination to help build bridges to help Afghans. “This includes providing humanitarian assistance through development and reconstruction projects, and supporting efforts aimed at regional de-escalation and stability.”

M^me Otunbayeva is due to brief the UN Security Council on the situation in Afghanistan on September 18, three years after the Taliban ended girls’ education beyond the sixth grade.

Acting Higher Education Minister Neda Mohammad Nadim said religious scholars were researching girls’ education and their findings would determine whether schools and universities would reopen.

“No one should pretend to be a cleric or tell us whether education is permissible for women,” he argued at a news conference in Kabul on Sunday. “We have proven that no decision will be against Islamic law or Afghan culture. This is a very sensitive issue, so it is not possible to decide in a few weeks or months. We cannot say exactly that by that date it will be resolved.”