By Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab
In June 2024, in the build-up to the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, published his report on “The phenomenon of an institutionalized system of discrimination, segregation, disrespect for human dignity and exclusion of women and girls.” The report follows a litany of reports on how, since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan have been perishing one by one.
The report provides a critical analysis of the institutionalized subjugation of Afghan women and girls, encoded in the Taliban’s gender-based system of discrimination, segregation, disrespect for dignity and exclusion. The report found that “The system of discrimination, segregation, disrespect for human dignity and exclusion institutionalized by the Taliban is motivated by and results in a profound rejection of the full humanity of women and girls. It is pervasive and methodical, and is institutionalized through and, in turn, reinforced by edicts and policies sanctioning the severe deprivation of fundamental rights. (...) these deprivations do not exist independently of each other. Rather, each deprivation systematically informs and interacts with others, creating a mutually reinforcing architecture of oppression.”
As emphasized by the U.N. Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett, “The Taliban’s institutionalized system of discrimination is most visible through its relentless issuance and enforcement of edicts, decrees, declarations and orders that in and of themselves constitute severe deprivations of human rights and violations of international law.” Indeed, since the last U.N. report, and between June 202 and March 2024, the Taliban issued approximately 52 edicts restricting the rights of women and girls across the country. Among others, in June 2023, foreign non-governmental organizations were banned from providing educational programs, including community-based education; and women were banned from participating in radio and television shows alongside male presenters. In July 2023, female beauty salons were forced to close. In August 2023, women were banned from entering Band-e Amir National Park. In October 2023, women were prohibited from holding directorships within non-governmental organizations. In February 2024, women on television were required to wear a black hijab, with their faces covered, leaving only their eyes visible.
The report found that “Women and girls are being maneuvred into increasingly narrow roles where the deep-rooted patriarchy, bolstered and legitimized by Taliban ideology, deems them to belong: as bearers and rearers of children, and as objects available for exploitation, including debt bondage, domestic servitude, sexual exploitation and other forms of unremunerated or poorly remunerated labor.”
The U.N. Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett noted that in January 2023, in its response to a request from the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) for information on the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan since August 15, 2021, the Taliban held that it “protected the rights of women and girls in line with sharia and the norms of Afghan society.” However, as the U.N. Special Rapporteur emphasized, “Assertions of cultural or religious customs and traditions cannot, however, justify violations of human rights. They do not, by any means, justify discrimination or violence, and cannot be used to legitimize exclusion, in violation of international law.” He further added that “traditional, historical, religious or cultural attitudes are not to be used to justify violations of the right to equality before the law and to equal enjoyment of all human rights.” He recalled Article 4 of the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, under which States should not invoke any custom, tradition or religious consideration to avoid their obligations with respect to the elimination of violence against women.
The U.N. Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett stressed that while the treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan is undoubtedly gender persecution as a crime against humanity (Article 7 of the Rome Statute), the situation is more adequately covered by the definition of gender apartheid. While gender apartheid is not criminalized under international law, the report emphasized that “In addition to strengthening the normative framework of international law, recognition of the crime against humanity of gender apartheid would more profoundly underscore the duty of States to take effective action to prevent and punish the practice.” In turn, it would help to address and end the practice.
The report of the U.N. Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett sends a very strong message that States and the international community cannot continue to ignore the situation hoping that it will resolve itself. The rapid attrition of female autonomy and agency, and the erasure of women and girls from the public, political, economic, social and cultural life of Afghanistan will not end unless the international community acts and acts now.