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.
You know, when I read The Handmaid’s Tale back in high school, I didn’t think the ending made any sense. How do you have tourists just walking around taking pictures when there’s horrible human rights violations happening in plain sight?
I think I get it now.
Honestly the accounts of the woman who visited almost bother me more than the men. Even as a tourist she wasn’t allowed to do certain things, but she can just leave whenever she wants. Wonder how her friends among the locals feel about that.