Several women activists from Afghanistan are on a hunger strike in Germany, demanding the international community formally recognize the Taliban’s repressive rules against women and girls as “gender apartheid.”
Tamana Zaryab Paryani, a women’s rights activist who organized the strike, said that the 12-day strike began on Friday in Cologne, Germany.
“In Afghanistan, Taliban has deprived women of their basic human rights because of their gender,” Paryani told BBC Persian in an interview Saturday, adding that they have been subjected to torture, sexual abuse, killing, and discrimination by the Taliban.
“The international community is silent in the face of an ongoing gender apartheid in Afghanistan. We had no choice but to launch a hunger strike to call on the world to recognize it and take action. We will continue our hunger strike until our demands are heard.”
In a post on X, the women’s rights activist also highlighted a halt on financial support and official engagement with the Taliban authorities and the immediate release of political prisoners who remain in Taliban’s detention centers as other demands.
Several rights groups and experts have voiced concerns that the draconian treatment of women and girls by the Taliban amounts to gender apartheid as their rights to education, employment, mobility, appearance, and other freedoms have been gravely curtailed by the group.
“Grave, systematic and institutionalized discrimination against women and girls is at the heart of Taliban ideology and rule, which also gives rise to concerns that they may be responsible for gender apartheid,” UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, told the Human Rights Council in Geneva in June.
Gender apartheid, according to the UN, refers to “economic and social sexual discrimination against individuals because of their gender or sex.”
Rights groups have also suggested that the Taliban’s gender persecution and discrimination be investigated as crimes against humanity.
Taliban defines women’s rights in accordance with their strict interpretation of Islamic law and has shown no sign of bending amid mounting backlash and pressure to respect the rights of women under international human rights law.
