The Taliban’s treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan could amount to a crime against humanity, according to a UN report and Afghan and Iranian women are backing a campaign calling for gender apartheid to be recognised as a crime under international law.
United Nations report presented on the Human Rights Council in Geneva proposed that the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan could amount to a crime against humanity.
Richard Bennett, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan has presented a new report on the “Situation of human rights in Afghanistan.”
According to the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett “the Taliban’s intentional and calculated policy is to repudiate the human rights of women and girls and to erase them from public life.”
He told the United Nations Human Rights Council the Taliban’s actions “may amount to the international crime of gender persecution for which the authorities can be held accountable.”
He added: “the cumulative effect of the restrictions on women and girls has a devastating, long-term impact on the whole population, and it is tantamount to gender apartheid.”
In December, the Taliban banned most female aid workers, prompting many aid agencies to partially suspend operations in the midst of a humanitarian crisis unfolding during the cold winter months.
As HRW underlined the special rapporteur catalogued widespread, serious abuses, noting that the Taliban authorities have “normalized” the systematic violation of the rights of women and girls.
A spokesperson for the Taliban-run information ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The Taliban have in the past said they respect women’s rights in line with their interpretation of Islam and Afghan culture and that they plan to open schools in future once they establish certain conditions for girls.
Campaign calls for gender apartheid to be crime under international law
A prominent group of Afghan and Iranian women are backing a campaign calling for gender apartheid to be recognised as a crime under international law.
The campaign, launched on International Women’s Day, reflects a belief that the current laws covering discrimination against women do not capture the systematic nature of the policies imposed in Afghanistan and Iran to downgrade the status of women in society.
Signatories of the open letter include the Iranian Nobel peace prize laureate Shirin Ebadi; the first female deputy speaker of the Afghan parliament, Fawzia Koofi; a commissioner of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Benafsha Yaqoobi; as well as many activists still fighting for their rights in Afghanistan and Iran.
Sources: Reuters, Guardian