In fresh curbs on women's freedom, the Afghanistan's Taliban regime has now come up with a ban on women’s voices and also bare faces in public.

The Talibal rulers say that the new laws approved by the supreme leader and they are aimed at  'combating vice and promote virtue'. The irony is that most of their laws again women's freedom since Taliban came into  power Kabul in 2021. They have already banned women fromt attending universities .  Only male students are allowed to go to unversities.Since the fall of Kabul to Taliban in August 2021, Afghan women are bearing the brunt of the situation. Every day new stories of Afghan women's rights violations circulate on social media, making one wonder as to what the Taliban are up to. It is very unfortunate that the world has been unable to press the Taliban authorities to lift the series of ban on women activities including education, sports and employment. The ban on women's voices and bare faces in public is just one of many restrictions on women since the fall of Kabul to Taliban in 2021.  In fact, women's rights have been totally usurped in this war-ravaged country as their participation in social life has been totally erased. It is very painful that Taliban are not ready to budge an inch from their anti-women steps which have deprived women of their due rights. Rather with the passage of time, they impose even harsher steps to confine them to homes. It can rightly be termed as 'gender-based apartheid'.

Despite a strong backlash from the global community including the Muslim world, the Taliban government in Afghanistan is hell-bent on barring women from education in one way or the other. There latest move to bar women's voices and bare faces in public is a case in point. It may be recalled here that they had segregated the female education but later they declared higher education a forbidden tree for women, which is against the teaching of Islam.  That's the Muslim countries mainly the Saudi Arab, Turkey, Qatar and majority of rest of the Muslim states have strongly lamented the Taliban Govt for their steps against female education, but to no avail. This latest together with the earlier Taliban policies frame to segregate women from public life are going to have strong consequences for the Taliban government as the world community including the Muslim world are not accept  the Taliban stance on women's issues. With the passage of time, the living conditions further deteriorate for Afghan women under the Taliban regime, who have been resorting to preventing women from being a part of public life and segregating them on almost every front.  Last year, they fired pepper spray at a group of women protesting in Kabul, demanding for provision of fundamental rights like work and education. In November 2022, bodies of four female rights activists were found in controversial circumstances in the PD-1 of Afghanistan's Mazar-e-Sharif province.  Last year in mid-January, former female parliamentarian Mursal Nabizada, was shot dead in her home,   Earlier, a Women's rights activist Frozan Safi was shot dead in northern Afghanistan in November 2021, just three months after the Taliban came into power. She went missing and then her body was found a month later.

Women who protest demand for their rights are subjected to whips and sticks. In one such latest example of extreme human rights violation, they have barred women from entering amusement parks in Afghan Capital Kabul last year. The Taliban's morality ministry stated in a statement that they have restricted women from visiting public parks, so there is no question of women being accessing the public parks. Earlier, they had segregated women's entry into public places by specifying some days for women to visit such places on particular days, but with latest statements things seems to be further aggravating for women. There seems to be no light at the end of tunnel for Afghan women, who are being subjected to discriminatory rules under the Taliban regime. It ought to be mentioned with concern that in the Taliban's first news conference after taking over Afghanistan on August 15, in 2021, the group spokesman had promised to allow women to work and study," as it tried to allay fears of its rule between 1996-2001 that was marked by restrictions on women's rights. But now they  have failed to keep up their promises and instead the group is following its 20 years old rules when it comes to women's rights. Future seems to be very bleak for Afghan women as the world has miserably failed to press Taliban on women’s issue. To be very specific, professions like sports, politics and educations have been declared forbidden branches for women. he female teachers are also bearing the brunt of the situation. More than 100,000 female teachers were deprived of their jobs. According to UNICEF estimates, around one-third of Afghan teachers were women, and a further 150,000 were employed in other sections of the education sector at the time of Taliban taking over of the country, but their future is uncertain under Taliban rule. Though Taliban had claimed to be respecting women's rights when they took over Kabul, but in reality that is not the case.