The Taliban’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue recently issued new morality laws, which prohibit women from speaking or showing their bare faces in public. The goal of such laws is the “promotion of virtue and the elimination of vice,” according to ministry spokesman Maulvi Abdul Ghafar Farooq. The “vice” in question is men’s desire, and women’s voices are apparently a form of intimacy that can be used to lead men into temptation.
Forcing women and girls to pay the price for men’s wrongdoings is nothing new, especially for those who live in Afghanistan. The Taliban has long imposed harsh restrictions on women’s rights, including not allowing them to travel alone and depriving them of access to education. The recent additions, however, are even more troubling.
The U.N. condemned the new laws, with Roza Otunbayeva, Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, saying they extend “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." The Taliban denounced those concerns.
If the idea is to prevent men’s temptation, one can only wonder why the Taliban does not go directly to the source: itself. It is extremely common for Taliban members to sexually assault women, especially the ones they arrest and imprison for breaking those laws. If those men in power cannot control their urges, then perhaps they should be the ones locked away and covered up. Otherwise, it seems as though the motivation is not eliminating temptation, but rather oppressing women.
Additionally, restricting women will only affect women. Men who live under the Taliban’s rule, although also victims of their government, rarely face repercussions for acts of violence they commit against women. And that is not surprising; men are essentially told their hands are forced by the women they assault.
It is also important to note both men and women are prone to temptation, as it is a natural facet of humanity. Men are only slightly more likely than women to feel sexual desire, and both genders feel sexual desire daily; if women can contain theirs without needing men to be invisible, so can men.
When the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan for a second time in August 2021, it vowed to respect women’s rights and take on a more moderate form of governing; before, it had carried out what can only be described as an attack on the rights of women and girls, including closing their schools and forcing them to quit their jobs. That promise was not kept, as things have only gotten worse for Afghan women.
If they fail to abide by the Taliban’s new laws, women and girls could be subject to “warnings, confiscations of property or detention of up to three days,” according to Global News. And before they were even official, the ministry had already been enforcing the new restrictions and had detained thousands of people for violations. Now that they have formally been written into law, the number could rise.
What is happening in Afghanistan is a violation of human rights, and it is concerning that it is not being talked about on a larger, global scale. To punish anyone for the actions of others is objectively wrong, and the restrictions the Taliban has placed upon women and girls are oppressive. They need to be recognized as such.
Brianna Tassiello is a senior studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the opinions expressed in this article do not represent those of The Post. Want to talk to Brianna? Email her at bt977520@ohio.edu.
