VANCOUVER, CANADA – Several prominent human rights organisations, united as the Alliance for Human Rights in Afghanistan, issued a joint statement urging the International Criminal Court to hold those responsible for crimes against women in Afghanistan accountable.
Marking the International Women’s Day today, March 8, the Alliance expressed deep concern over the escalating repressive actions of the Taliban, particularly the impact on the rights of women and girls, exacerbating the already dire humanitarian situation.
These groups ask the global community to stand in solidarity for the protection of the rights of Afghan women, especially the human rights defenders facing harassment and persecution for their peaceful advocacy and protest.
This year’s IWD is a reminder to the world of the unprecedentedly entrenched and extensive system of gender persecution in Afghanistan. The Taliban have erased women from every area of public life. It is almost as if any act of protest or pressure from the outside world incentivizes the regime to double on its repression.
Women activists increasingly have turned to the UN to use the International Criminal Court in investigating and prosecuting Taliban’s oppression against women. International human rights organizations concur with the country’s women that the regime’s behaviour amounts to the crime against humanity of gender apartheid.
Since gender apartheid is not codified in international law and the Rome Statute in particular, advocates ask the UN to include it in the relevant conventions in the upcoming reviews due in the coming months.
Pointing out the imposed restrictions on the people, especially women and girls, and marginalized religious and gender minorities, the organizations who issued the Friday statement underscored that these limitations have led to heightened financial insecurity and gender inequalities.
“Afghan women and girls have seen their rights and prospects increasingly curtailed, from greater enforcement of restrictions on education – including a ban on girls attending secondary schools and universities – to intensifying exclusion of women from political and public life.”
The joint statement by the Alliance for Human Rights in Afghanistan further emphasized the alarming conditions faced by women from the LGBTQ community. They say that female members of the LGBTQ community are subject to severe threats such as torture, sexual violence, forced marriages, and death.
KabulNow reported last month about the increasingly dire situation of gays and lesbians in Afghanistan under a regime that considers their way of life and sexual orientation as a sin and punishable by corporal measures.
Afghan women staged protests on March 8 against the backdrop of the Taliban’s heightened restrictions, resulting in the deprivation of women’s freedom, education, and employment opportunities in Afghanistan.
In response to the deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan and the unlawful seizure of power by the Taliban in August 2021, various human rights organizations joined forces in March 2022 to establish the Alliance for Human Rights in Afghanistan.
The alliance includes Amnesty International, Front Line Defenders, Freedom House, Freedom Now, Human Rights Watch, MADRE, The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
The objective of the alliance is to collectively monitor the severe human rights situation in Afghanistan, advocating for the protection of human rights and accountability for all violations and abuses. Through this alliance, member organizations collaborate on joint advocacy, research, awareness campaigns, and mobilization, as well as documenting and reporting human rights violations and abuses in Afghanistan.
