KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – A group of Spanish women activists has launched a petition urging the International Criminal Court (ICC) to classify the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls as a crime against humanity.
As reported by the Spanish news outlet El País, the petition began circulating on social media on Sunday and collected 1,000 signatures in just one day.
“Among the signatories are journalists, MPs, professors, lawyers, and Also women who are working in international associations,” the report said.
“We, women from all over the world, from different fields and professions, we who have a voice, are shocked and want to raise our voice in support of the women and girls of Afghanistan,” they stated in the petition.
“They are under a regime of repression that violates their most basic human rights, where they suffer oppression, violence, repression, harassment, and constant humiliation,” they added.
They stated that the Taliban’s treatment of women clearly constitutes a crime against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute and should be recognized as gender apartheid, as requested by the UN Rapporteur.
They urged the International Criminal Court to classify the Taliban’s treatment of Afghan women as a crime against humanity and hold those responsible accountable.
In their petition, they also called on the Spanish government and the international community to take action to prevent further violations of women’s rights in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
“We will see if there are reactions from the Government and if the example spreads to other European countries,” said Cristina Monge, a Spanish activist and the key driving force behind the initiative.
“I understand that there will be more specific actions by women’s associations,” she added.
Over the past three years of Taliban rule, Afghanistan has become one of the worst countries in the world for women and girls. The regime in power has severely cracked down on them, restricting their movements and denying them access to education, employment, social mobility, and other basic freedoms.
UN experts, including Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett, along with rights groups and activists, all agree that the Taliban’s oppression of women and girls constitutes a system of apartheid designed to deliberately subjugate them solely based on their gender.
Recently, the regime announced a new set of restrictions known as the “Vice and Virtue” law, which further curtailed women’s rights and freedoms.
The new law requires women to fully veil their bodies in public and considers their voices instruments of vice, forbidding them from reading or singing aloud, not only in public but even within their homes.
The 35-article law also prohibits women from looking directly at men who are not related by blood or marriage and from using city taxis without being accompanied by a close male relative.
According to the law, individuals who defy the new rules will be arrested and imprisoned.
