Last month, the Taliban passed a new "vice and virtue" law, making it illegal for women to speak in public. Under the law, women can also be punished if they are heard singing or reading aloud from within their homes.

It was approved by the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, and will be enforced by the Ministry for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice.

Ahead of an international conference on the future of Afghanistan in Doha, Qatar, earlier this year, the United Nations' mission head for Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, said it would "take time" for the Taliban to accept women. The Taliban specifically mandated no women attend the conference, which the UN agreed to.

But as gender experts have been saying for years, Taliban leaders have not—and will not—change. Three years after they regained control of Afghanistan, the Taliban's efforts to publicly erase women from Afghan society have reached a new low.

Gender apartheid

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