Gender apartheid codification could change the life of women and girls in Afghanistan.

Photo by Wanman uthmaniyyah on Unsplash.com

A group of women’s rights activists and lawyers from Afghanistan and Iran launched the End Gender Apartheid campaign in March 2023, with the aim of dismantling and preventing gender apartheid regimes through the codification of gender apartheid as a crime against humanity.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban has reclaimed power by creating a regime that discriminates based on gender, issuing over 100 decrees that restrict the daily lives of women. 

The decrees systematically prohibit women from accessing equal education, work, healthcare, and justice - trapping them in a cycle of forced motherhood and unpaid domestic labor. Since young girls in Afghanistan are banned from studying beyond sixth grade, in the next few years there will be no new female doctors, lawyers, professors, or engineers. Everyone within the system, both boys and girls, is being raised to perceive this as normal.

The heartbreaking testimony delivered by Alina, from Parwan Province, effectively shows the impact such decrees have on women's lives: “Before the Taliban takeover, I worked in a governmental organization in the security department. I had an income, and with that, I supported my daughters, who were studying Law and Political Science. But the fall of Afghanistan destroyed all our lives; the day the Taliban came to Afghanistan, our office was closed, and they messaged us that all the women should stay at home until further notice.”  

Afghanistan is not the only country in which rulers have crafted a gender-discriminatory regime. In Iran, the Islamic Republic has oppressed women and girls by approving laws and implementing policies that violate their rights in marriage, property, work, justice, and lifestyle - using their freedoms as tools of domination. 

These policies are distinct from other forms of gender discrimination that occur in countries around the globe. This is what led to the creation of the End Gender Apartheid campaign, which is committed to expanding the existing definition of apartheid in order to include gender along with race. Echoing the legal definition of apartheid, the Campaign defines gender apartheid as: inhumane acts committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one gender group over any other gender group or groups, and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime. 

Many jurists and activists who have worked for the suppression of apartheid in southern Africa have expressed support and solidarity for the codification of gender apartheid, considering the parallels between the two regimes: systematic domination and oppression to perpetuate totalizing harms; the gendered experiences of apartheid in South Africa, where black women experienced disproportionate harm; and the colonial roots of apartheid in South Africa alongside the colonial legacies responsible for the Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan.

Codifying gender apartheid as a crime against humanity would provide legal mechanisms to hold the Taliban - and any future perpetrators - accountable for such atrocities, and would strengthen the protection of women’s rights globally.

This codification can operate in two ways: through an amendment to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court - aimed at recognising gender apartheid as a crime against humanity, or its recognition in a separate treaty specifically focused on gender apartheid. Indeed, the UN will hold negotiations from 2026 to 2029 to draft a new international treaty aimed at preventing and punishing crimes against humanity. 

To date, 12 Member States from across the globe have expressed openness to codifying gender apartheid as  a crime against humanity: Afghanistan, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Chile, Iceland, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, the Philippines, Portugal, and Spain.

Moreover, 18 states have recognised the existence of gender apartheid in Afghanistan: Afghanistan, Albania, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, the European Parliament, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Montenegro, Namibia, the Netherlands, Peru, South Africa, Spain, and Ukraine.

The process aimed at negotiating a new crimes against humanity treaty occurs at a crucial moment, in which geopolitical instability and rising authoritarianism are progressively pushing back women’s and girls’rights. Acting now is necessary to defend women across the globe, especially those whose rights are violated daily and systematically.

written by Sonia Iovine