Ending Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan is a Global Responsibility!

Dr. Malek Sitez, Senior Researcher on Human Rights and International Law

Apartheid is the ugliest and most severe form of discrimination imposed on citizens by laws, structures, policies, and official mechanisms. Human society has witnessed various forms of apartheid, the most inhumane of which are racial apartheid and gender apartheid. In this regard, the global community has tried to make all governments commit to including all forms of apartheid as crimes in their legal systems and to prosecute the perpetrators of this heinous crime. On the other hand, international courts consider apartheid as a crime against humanity and call on the global community to completely eliminate apartheid on Earth. The International Criminal Court (ICC)i recognizes apartheid as a crime against humanity and conducts research and interpretation of legal theories related to this crime. Supporting the victims of apartheid violations is considered a duty of member states of the United Nations. Therefore, governments are required to identify ways to prevent this heinous phenomenon and punish those responsible, in line with the requirements of human rights conventions derived from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDRH), which specifically prohibit apartheid and discrimination. 

With the takeover by the Taliban in August 2021, the human rights situation of the people of Afghanistan has tragically changed. The Taliban, by declaring an Islamic emirate, nullified the Afghan constitution, which had guaranteed the protection of citizens’ fundamental rights in its second chapter, and abolished the laws derived from it. The Taliban leadership subsequently issued a continuous chain of restrictive orders against human rights of citizens, and the Taliban’s executive structures imposed and enforced them on the people. By implementing these discriminatory orders against women, the Taliban leader systematically deprived women of all their fundamental rights. Women were deprived of their right to education, right to work, right to access social and cultural opportunities through this oppressive imposition. This chain of discrimination against women, imposed by laws, policies, official and unofficial institutions under the rule of the Taliban in the name of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is forcibly imposed on women in the country, showing clear examples of gender apartheid. 

This oppressive method of the Taliban against Afghan women has been met with serious reactions from the global community, human rights monitoring bodies, mechanisms of the UN human rights, civil society organizations, and human rights defenders inside and outside the country. However, the Taliban deliberately consider their approach as an internal issue of Afghanistan and, under this pretext, ignore global reactions. The Taliban do not respond to reports, criticisms, and recommendations of the special rapporteur on human rights and other human rights organizations, arguing that women’s issues are dependent on the cultural situation of Afghanistan. This approach of the Taliban and their extremist and dogmatic interpretations of their political ideology have originated and are being imposed on society under the guise of supporting the sanctities of the Islamic religion. 

The HRD+, through comprehensive legal, social, political, and cultural analysis of the situation in Afghanistan, unequivocally declares that discrimination and gender apartheid are not desired by our people, nor are they part of our culture or an internal matter; rather, they are a global tragedy that requires serious human rights intervention by all governments, institutions, and influential figures globally. 

Based on the eight fundamental principles of international human rights listed below, the HRD+ considers the plight of the Afghan people to be the responsibility of the entire global community and calls on the international system to urgently, seriously, and effectively support the people of Afghanistan and work towards freeing them from the shameful chains of gender apartheid.