KABUL: Taliban has made it illegal for women to travel for more than 45 kilometres without being accompanied by a male family member. The Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice also announced on Sunday that woman travelling longer distances should not be granted transportation if they are alone, and that transportation should only be supplied to those wearing Islamic hijabs.

“Women travelling more than 45 miles which is 72 kilometres, should not be provided a ride unless they are accompanied by a close male relative,” said by ministry spokesperson Sadeq Akif Muhajir.

People should not play music in their automobiles, according to the new order. The Taliban argue that their limits on women working and girls studying are “temporary,” and that they are only in place to make all jobs and learning environments “safe” for them.

Heather Barr, the assistant director of Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, told an international news agency that this new order “basically advances in the path of making women prisoners”.

She also added, “it shuts down options for people to move about freely, to travel to another place, to do business or to leave if they are experiencing domestic abuse”.