The law provides for graduated sanctions in case of non-compliance – ranging from verbal warnings to threats, fines, and varying durations of detention – imposed by the morality police under the Ministry of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (PVPV). It specifically states that women must cover their faces and bodies when leaving the house and ensure that their voices are not heard.
“After decades of war and in the midst of a terrible humanitarian crisis, the Afghan people deserve far better than to be threatened or imprisoned for being late to prayer, glancing at a person of the opposite sex who is not a family member, or possessing a photo of a loved one,” said Roza Otunbayeva, head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), on Sunday.
“This is a worrying vision for the future of Afghanistan, where morality inspectors have discretionary powers to threaten and arrest anyone based on broad and sometimes vague lists of offenses,” she added.
“Gender Apartheid”
Many aspects of the law have already been informally enforced since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, and women are already bearing the brunt of the restrictions described by the UN as “gender apartheid,” which have pushed them out of public life.
For Roza Otunbayeva, the “law extends the already intolerable restrictions on the rights of Afghan women and girls, with the mere sound of a female voice outside the home apparently considered a moral violation.”
The UN has also expressed concern about the restrictions imposed on religious freedoms and press freedom within the law, which stipulates that media must not publish “content hostile to Sharia and religion” or “that shows living beings.”
Also read: Hazara, woman and feminist, Sima Samar, a thorn in the side of the Taliban