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Academic rigour, journalistic flair

A Taliban fighter stands guard as women wait to receive food rations distributed
by a humanitarian aid group, in Kabul, Afghanistan, in May 2023. (AP
Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)


THE TALIBAN’S WAR ON WOMEN IN AFGHANISTAN MUST BE FORMALLY RECOGNIZED AS
GENDER APARTHEID

Published: August 8, 2023 8.31pm CEST
Vrinda Narain, McGill University


AUTHOR

 1. Vrinda Narain
    
    Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Centre for Human Rights and Legal
    Pluralism, McGill University


DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

Vrinda Narain is affiliated with Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), a
transnational research and solidarity network, as a Board Director.


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The second anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is fast
approaching. Since then, Afghan women have been denied the most basic human
rights in what can only be described as gender apartheid.

Only by labelling it as such and making clear the situation in Afghanistan is a
crime against humanity can the international community legally fight the
systematic discrimination against the country’s women and girls.

Erasing women from the public sphere is central to Taliban ideology. Women’s
rights institutions in Afghanistan, notably the Ministry of Women’s Affairs,
have been dismantled while the dreaded Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue
and the Prevention of Vice has been resurrected.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission has been dissolved and the
country’s 2004 constitution repealed, while legislation guaranteeing gender
equality has been invalidated.



Today, Afghan women are denied a post-secondary education, they cannot leave the
house without a male chaperone, they cannot work, except in health care and some
private businesses and they are barred from parks, gyms and beauty salons.


A general view of a closed beauty salon in the city of Kabul, Afghanistan, in
July 2023. The Taliban has closed all beauty salons in Afghanistan. (AP
Photo/Siddiqullah Khan)


WOMEN TARGETED

Of the approximately 80 edicts issued by the Taliban, 54 specifically target
women, severely restricting their rights and violating Afghanistan’s
international obligations and its previous constitutional and domestic laws.

The Taliban appear undeterred, continuing where they left off 20 years ago when
they first held power. The results of their ambitions are nearly apocalyptic.

Afghanistan is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. About 19
million people are suffering from acute food insecurity, while more than 90 per
cent of Afghans are experiencing some form of food insecurity, with
female-headed households and children most impacted.

Gender-based violence has increased exponentially with corresponding impunity
for the perpetrators and lack of support for the victims, while ethnic,
religious and sexual minorities are suffering intense persecution.

This grim reality underscores the urgent need to address how civil, political,
socioeconomic and gender-based harms are interconnected.


Mothers and babies suffering from malnutrition wait to receive help and
check-ups at an international humanitarian clinic in Kabul, Afghanistan, in
January 2023. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)


INTERNATIONAL CRIME

Karima Bennoune, an Algerian-American international law scholar, has advocated
recognizing gender apartheid as a crime under international law. Such
recognition would stem from states’ international legal commitments to gender
equality and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 5 aimed at
achieving global gender equality by 2030.

Criminalizing gender apartheid would provide the international community with a
powerful legal framework to effectively respond to Taliban abuses. While the UN
has already labelled the situation in Afghanistan gender apartheid, the term is
not currently recognized under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court as being among the worst international crimes.

Presenting his report at the UN Human Rights Council, Richard Bennett — the UN
Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan — stated:

> “A grave, systematic and institutionalized discrimination against women and
> girls is at the heart of Taliban ideology and rule, which also gives rise to
> concerns that they may be responsible for gender apartheid.”

Criminalizing gender apartheid globally would allow the international community
to fulfil its obligation to respond effectively and try to eradicate it
permanently. It would provide the necessary legal tools to ensure that
international commitments to women’s rights in all aspects of life are upheld.

Shaharzad Akbar, head of the Rawadari human rights group and former chair of the
Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, has urged the Human Rights
Council to acknowledge the situation in Afghanistan as gender apartheid.

She’s noted that the “Taliban have turned Afghanistan to a mass graveyard of
Afghan women and girls’ ambitions, dreams and potential.”






SOUTH AFRICAN SUPPORT

A number of Afghan women’s rights defenders have also called for the inclusion
of gender apartheid in the UN’s Draft Convention on Crimes Against Humanity.

Most remarkably, Bronwen Levy, South Africa’s representative at the Security
Council, has urged the international community to “take action against what
(Bennett’s) report describes as gender apartheid, much like it did in support of
South Africa’s struggle against racial apartheid.”





Elsewhere, the chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights
and Gender Equality, as well as the head of its Delegation for Relations with
Afghanistan, have described the “unacceptable” situation in Afghanistan as one
of gender apartheid.

Whenever and wherever apartheid systems emerge, it represents a failure of the
international community. The situation in Afghanistan must compel it to respond
effectively to the persecution of women.

Recognizing Taliban rule as gender apartheid is not only critical for Afghans,
it is equally critical for the credibility of the entire UN system. As Afghan
human rights activist Zubaida Akbar told the Security Council:

> “If you do not defend women’s rights here, you have no credibility to do so
> anywhere else.”

The Taliban’s brutal two years in power in Afghanistan have taught us that
ordinary human rights initiatives, while important, are insufficient for
addressing gender apartheid. The world needs resolute collective international
action to end the war on women. Not in two months. Not in two years. But now.

 * Gender
 * Afghanistan
 * Taliban
 * Women
 * Human rights
 * Sexism
 * Apartheid
 * Women's rights
 * US withdrawal from Afghanistan
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