As the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly opens in New York, Human Rights Watch has urged world leaders to recognize and criminalize “gender apartheid” in Afghanistan, citing the Taliban’s systematic restrictions on women and girls since their return to power in 2021.
In a new report, the organization stressed that the denial of women’s access to education, employment, and public participation is not only a blatant violation of human rights but also constitutes a potential “crime against humanity.”
“Afghanistan’s experience demonstrates why new international treaties addressing crimes against humanity must explicitly include the crime of gender apartheid,” the report stated.
Human Rights Watch called on global leaders at the UN General Assembly to commit to defending Afghan women and to take concrete steps to end the Taliban’s systematic abuses.
The General Assembly opened on Tuesday, September 23, with remarks by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who warned that the world has entered “an era of reckless turmoil and relentless human suffering.”
Calls to end gender apartheid in Afghanistan have been consistently echoed over the past four years by Afghan women’s rights defenders and protest movements. UN special rapporteurs have also repeatedly described the Taliban’s policies as institutionalizing a system of gender apartheid.
Since 2021, the Taliban have issued nearly 100 decrees curtailing women’s freedoms—effectively erasing them from public life and confining them to their homes.
Despite mounting international criticism, the Taliban continue to insist that the rights of Afghan women and girls are fully protected under what they call “Islamic Sharia law.”
