Taliban vice and virtue laws provide 'distressing vision' for Afghanistan, warns UN envoy
A top UN official is warning that the Taliban’s new vice and virtue laws provide a distressing vision for Afghanistan’s future
ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban’s new vice and virtue laws that include a ban on women’s voices and bare faces in public provide a “distressing vision” for Afghanistan’s future, a top U.N. official warned Sunday.
Roza Otunbayeva, who heads the U.N. mission in the country, said the laws extend the “ already intolerable restrictions ” on the rights of women and girls, with “even the sound of a female voice” outside the home apparently deemed a moral violation.
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers last Wednesday issued the country’s first set of laws to prevent vice and promote virtue. They include a requirement for a woman to conceal her face, body and voice outside the home.
The laws empower the Vice and Virtue Ministry to be at the front line of regulating personal conduct and administering punishments like warnings or arrest if its enforcers allege that Afghans have broken the laws.
