The Taliban Is Trying to Silence Women. We Cannot Stand Silent | Opinion

Since August 2021, the world has witnessed a complete erosion of human rights in Afghanistan.

The situation of women and girls under the Taliban controlled Afghanistan is unparalleled in the world in terms of its severity and systematic deprivation of their fundamental rights. Last month, the oppression reached an unprecedented low when dozens of laws restricting women’s rights were formalized and published, including forbidding women from showing their bare faces and banning women’s voices in public.

But how did we get here? A combination of miscalculations from the West have emboldened the Taliban. But it’s not too late for the international community to reverse course and prevent the further oppression of the women of Afghanistan.

On February 29, 2020, the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement which was the impetus for the US and its allied forces to withdraw from Afghanistan, ending one of the longest wars in American history.

The government of Afghanistan was not a party to the agreement, and the terms of the agreement were contingent on a number of issues, eg, reduction of violence by the Taliban and initiation of intra-Afghan peace negotiations.

However, the Taliban continued its offensive more violently than before and the intra-Afghan peace talks were intermittent and continually stalled on many issues, such as the Taliban’s rejection of a ceasefire and the government of Afghanistan’s refusal to agree to the Taliban’s ultra conservative version of Sharia law.

In August 2021, the US completed its 20 years of military presence in Afghanistan resulting in the Taliban regaining control of Afghanistan and creating one of the most drastic human rights and humanitarian crises in the world.

Joining forces with Al-Qaeda, the Taliban governed Afghanistan between 1996 to 2001, through terror and intimidation. The Taliban was overthrown from power soon after the tragic events of 9/11. Between 2001 to 2021, Afghanistan had made much progress on human rights and establishing democracy. Although there were many shortcomings and Afghanistan was transitioning from three consecutive decades of conflict and widespread allegations of corruption and security issues posed by the resurgent Taliban, Afghanistan was on it is way to realizing human rights and democratic values. Despite weak enforcement mechanisms, important laws were passed, and institutions were built which emphasized human rights and democratic values. The 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), and Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) were established. Internationally, Afghanistan ratified major international human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, among others.

These developments guaranteed the protection of fundamental rights for the women of Afghanistan and provided them social and economic growth that significantly improved their socio-economic condition between 2001 and August 2021.

In August 2021, the Taliban returned to power with a promise to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms. However, immediately after seizing power, the Taliban dismantled Afghanistan’s national laws, dissolved the AIHRC and dissolved the MoWA. Through more than 150 decrees and edicts, the Taliban systematically banned or limited women’s rights to education, work, freedom of expression, freedom of movement and assembly, and severely limiting their access to health care and justice. Similar to their first time in power in the 1990s, the Taliban also resumed and reintroduced horrific measures such as public stoning of women to death and flogging.

The Taliban is entrenching its institutionalized oppression of women with complete impunity. On Aug. 21, 2024, through the Ministry of Justice’s Official Gazette, the Taliban issued a new series of extremely restrictive measures on women called “The Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Law”. Article 13 of the law states that if for urgent matters a woman must leave her home, she is required to cover her entire body, including their face, and that women’s voices should be concealed in public.

But laws without enforcement have no teeth. So, to institutionalize their systematic oppression of women and animate their written edicts, the Taliban has re-introduced the Ministry of Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice. The feared ministry has arbitrarily arrested, tortured, publicly flogged, stoned, and killed women for not following the Taliban’s dress code or protesting for their rights. The Taliban has created a system of governance that is deliberately built to systematically oppress and subjugate the women of Afghanistan and to deprive them of their livelihoods and identity. The situation of women in Afghanistan parallels the apartheid regime in South Africa during 1948 to 1994—institutionalized, systematic oppression and domination. The women in Afghanistan call their experience under the Taliban gender apartheid.

We need a full set of diplomatic, political and legal tools to address the multifaceted crisis Afghanistan is facing under Taliban rule. To move forward, the people of Afghanistan need long-term sustainable policy and political support from the international community.

Currently, gender apartheid is not criminalized under international law. In March 2023, a group of prominent Afghan and Iranian jurists and human rights defenders, launched the End Gender Apartheid Campaign, which calls for the recognition and codification of “gender apartheid” under the draft Convention on the Prevention of Crimes Against Humanity.

In October 2024, the United Nations’ Sixth Committee is scheduled to deliberate on the draft convention. Codifying it under international law will oblige the international community to take collaborative action to end the Taliban’s gender apartheid, similar to what was done against South Africa decades ago.

At the political level, we are increasingly concerned about the international community’s political engagement with the Taliban and the possibilities of closing down or handing over Afghanistan’s embassies to the Taliban. We urge nations not to hand over these embassies, the only diplomatic representations of the people of Afghanistan, to the Taliban. The Taliban’s treatment of women and ethnic and minority religious groups should not be normalized and accountability for the ongoing gross human rights violations by the Taliban should be at the forefront of any kind of political engagement with them.

Azadah Raz Mohammad is a legal advisor for the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council and a PhD candidate at the Melbourne Law School.

Gissou Nia is a human rights lawyer and founder & director of the Strategic Litigation Project. She is a legal advisor to the End Gender Apartheid campaign.

The views expressed in this article are the writers’ own.