Afghanistan, women's rights. Taliban authorities said that “a woman can talk to another woman”

“A woman can talk to another woman, women have to interact with each other in society, women have needs,” Saiful Islam Khyber, spokesman for the Ministry of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, told AFP.

Recently, information about the ban on talks appeared in the Afghan exile media, based on a recorded speech by Minister Mohammad Khalid Hanafi.

The spokesman said that such a ban would be “stupid” and “illogical” and assured that the minister's speech referred to exceptional situations, such as a group of praying women.

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The UN estimates that since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, Kabul has been introducing “gender apartheid” by gradually pushing women out of public spaces. According to the Taliban, all these prohibitions flow from Islamic religious law. Since the Taliban took power, Afghan women have had no access to secondary schools and universities, ending formal education in the sixth grade.

Women cannot go to parks, sports halls or beauty salons or leave home without a male guardian. The law prohibits them from singing or reciting poetry and encourages them to cover their bodies and remain silent outside the home. The Taliban, which advocates strict separation of women from unrelated men, has also blocked women's access to almost the entire labor market.

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A new decree issued at the end of August by the Ministry of Virtue and Combating Vice stipulates that women are obliged to cover their faces and remain silent in public places.

Authorities Afghanistan they also recently suspended their polio vaccination campaign. The opposition believes that the idea was to limit women's participation in this action.

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