THE Taliban on Monday rejected concerns and criticism raised by the United Nations over new so-called vice and virtue laws that ban women in Afghanistan from baring their faces and speaking in public places.

United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) chief Roza Otunbayeva said on Sunday that the laws provided a “distressing vision” for Afghanistan’s future.

She 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.