Law of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices
Responsibilities of the Overseer Regarding Passenger and Cargo Vehicles, Motorcycles, and Other Transport

Article Twenty: The overseer is responsible for ensuring that vehicle operators and drivers adhere to the following:
1. Prohibiting the playing of music.
2. Enforcing the ban on the use and trafficking of drugs.
3. Preventing the transport of women without proper hijab.
4. Ensuring that women do not sit or mix with non-mahram men.
5. Avoiding the transport of women without a legal mahram who is sane and of legal age.
6. Mandating transport companies to arrange their vehicles so that drivers and passengers can perform their prayers at the designated times.

Article 20 illustrates the Taliban’s imposition of a deeply conservative religious framework onto Afghanistan’s public transportation system. By embedding prayer enforcement and gender segregation into law, it transforms public mobility into a controlled space of moral surveillance. The directive compounds gender discrimination by effectively criminalizing solo travel for women and erases cultural freedoms through the prohibition of music.