Standing with the women and girls of Afghanistan

About 110 people from Australia and Britain joined Amnesty International (AI) in an on-line forum, on September 23, to hear about the human rights group's strategy to support women in Afghanistan. Kathy Allan from AI introduced the forum by saying that when Kabul fell on August 15, 2021, the United States handed over power to the Taliban, after the US Coalition, including Australian forces, had carried out a military intervention into Afghanistan for two decades.

The Taliban has 164 decrees targeting women and girls. Women have been barred from most jobs, and from working with non-government organisations (NGOs). Girls are banned from secondary school and university, parks, gyms and beauty salons. Women cannot speak publicly. LGBTIQ+ Afghans have been forced into hiding.

The Taliban is also attacking ethnic and religious minorities, as well as journalists and human rights defenders.

This institutionalised pattern of systemic domination and oppression based on gender has been labelled “gender apartheid”. Afghanistan is the only country in the world to impose this extreme form of gender discrimination.

Right now, international law has no statute that fully captures this situation. AI is calling for gender apartheid to be recognised as a crime under international law.

Muslima, an Afghan educator and writer, told the forum, “Almost overnight, the door to our classroom was closed. Just because you were a girl, you lost your classroom.

“I never imagined that my future would just mean I stay home ... simply because I was born a girl. Being at home every day felt like a prison, like being in jail. Where do I go? My human rights were wiped out.

“But now I have a computer, my classroom to the outside world. All that I have is a small screen in my room. If they find out, I can face charges.

“Thousands of girls have no access to a computer and internet, but I am lucky. Afghan women can’t talk about their stories, nor can they speak about these issues. Girls of 12 years of age are denied the simple right to education, to learn, to develop their skills, to make friends.

“The Taliban can’t build a strong future by excluding half of the population. Afghanistan is losing enormous [human] potential.

“I want the world to see something beyond our suffering. Women are still writing, working, advocating, creating, contributing and building. If you want to support Afghan women, you must listen to them.

“When the headlines disappear, Afghan women do not disappear.

“So my message is clear: make a space for us to speak. Share our voices.

“Sometimes solidarity begins with something as simple as a refusal to forget. Listen to the voices of Afghan women, who are denied their human rights,” Muslima concluded.

The next speaker was Shaharzad Akbar, a human rights activist from Afghanistan, currently living in exile. She talked about the Peoples Tribunal on Women of Afghanistan, which was held in Madrid, Spain, in October last year and hosted by four Afghan women’s organisations.

They are worried that the actions of the Taliban, as the de facto regime, are being normalised in the region. The Taliban currently have consulates in Germany, China, India and Turkiye, although only Russia officially recognises the Taliban government. Europe is now holding conversations with the Taliban regarding potentially deporting Afghan men and women.

Akbar said, “Women are not able to train as midwives or doctors ... Women will die from preventable diseases because there are not enough female health-care providers.”

Women are suffering from domestic abuse, but it is not considered a crime inside Afghanistan. Emotional, economic and physical abuses are not criminalised. Husbands are allowed by law to punish their wives for any offence.

Women can only go to a judge to make a complaint if they have obvious bruises or broken bones — and face many hurdles to do so. They are not allowed to leave the house alone and a male family member has to accompany them to the court. So a brother or father has to be convinced to support them.

The woman has to relay her message to the judge through a man. If she is believed and she has broken bones caused by her husband, he will be imprisoned for 15 days. He usually returns home only to repeat the abuse.

“We have had increased killing of women, increased suicides of women and a mental health crisis for women and girls in Afghanistan. They don’t see a future for themselves. They are imprisoned in their homes, suffering abuse and forced into early marriages. Despite all this, the Taliban are being normalised.

“We thought if we held a tribunal, where people could hear what is happening, we could slow down this normalisation process. Do we really want our governments to engage with a regime like this?

“Some 24 survivors, some who were refugees, spoke to the Tribunal by audio or written testimonies, for they feared for their own lives and that of their families.”

In December, a panel of eight judges declared that non-normalisation of the Taliban should occur. “So you should watch very carefully what the Australian government is doing in regards to their relationship to the Taliban,” said Akbar.

Two years ago, in September 2024, Australia, Germany, The Netherlands and Canada promised to hold Afghanistan and the Taliban accountable for violations of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Afghanistan is a signatory to CEDAW. The countries said that if they didn’t get a satisfactory answer, they would take the Afghan government to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Afghani women have been asking these four countries each month when they are going to take the Taliban to the ICJ. “We receive vague answers. So please ask your government what happened to the CEDAW legal initiative?

“I know it won’t solve our problems but it will tell the women and girls of Afghanistan that the world stands with them. We need to tell the world to channel aid to Afghan women and force the Taliban to reverse the codification of gender apartheid,” concluded Akbar.

Azadah Raz Mohammad, one of the prosecutors who appeared before the Peoples Tribunal, and legal advisor to the campaign to end gender apartheid, told the forum: “The current objective is to codify gender apartheid under the current treaty we have before the UN, the crimes against humanity treaty.”

The phrase “gender apartheid” was first used in the period 1996 to 2001, when the Taliban was in power for the first time.

“We now have 14 states that have expressed support for codification of gender apartheid and seven states that have submitted formal proposals to the UN committee for inclusion of the practice in the crimes against humanity. These states include Australia, Timor-Leste, Luxembourg, Iceland, the former government of Afghanistan and Uruguay. This will go for negotiation to the UN in 2028.”

The final speaker, Fatima Frotan, is doing grassroots work with Afghan women in communities, including distributing menstruation pads in Daikundi and Uruzgan provinces, through personal contacts.

Frotan said men and boys in Afghanistan are getting educated in religious idolatry and misogyny and there has been a rise in the establishment of madrasas across the country by the Taliban.

Frotan was part of an organisation called Afghans for Progressive Thinking.

“We began talking to a number of youth. We started a pilot program for women and girls in Kabul. Afghanistan is a deeply religious country, and Islam is a big part of their identity. We introduced them to a more egalitarian interpretation of Islam, where they could find the agency and empowerment within their own identity, which was quite successful.

“In the western part of Kabul there have been targeted attacks on the Hazara neighbourhoods. Shiite education facilities have been taken over by the Taliban. LGBTQIA people are persecuted.

“We have to stop the campaign of genocide against Hazara peoples and other minorities. We want the West to expand the number of scholarships given to Afghani women and to expand the number of scholarships to overseas universities, and to help with the visas, especially for women at risk,” she said.

Amnesty International's 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, from November 25 to December 10, is focussed on pressuring the Australian government to use its diplomatic influence to support recognition of gender apartheid under international law and follow through on accountability for the Taliban’s crimes against women and girls.

[For more information, visit: amnesty.org.au.]