KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the UN Human Rights Council to establish an independent accountability mechanism to investigate human rights abuses in Afghanistan, including crimes committed by the Taliban against women and girls.
Fereshta Abbasi, HRW’s Afghanistan researcher, told the council’s 60th session in Geneva on Tuesday that an independent and comprehensive accountability mechanism is urgently needed, urging the council to act now.
“An accountability mechanism would be a vital tool in addressing the entrenched impunity at the heart of Afghanistan’s human rights crisis, advancing access to justice, truth, and reparation for victims of abuses,” Ms. Abbasi said. She added it could also serve as a deterrent to further violations.
The proposed mechanism, Abbasi said, could complement the work of Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan. She noted that over the past four years, Taliban attacks on the rights of women and girls have been widespread and systematic, amounting to crimes against humanity of gender persecution. UN experts have described the situation as “gender apartheid.”
“Afghan women continue to resist the attacks on their rights, and we should stand with them in solidarity through concrete actions,” Abbasi said, warning that further delays mean another year of girls being denied access to education.
Earlier this week, Bennett, Nahla Haidar, Chair of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and Afghan women’s rights activists also urged the council to create a mechanism to hold the Taliban accountable for systematic human rights violations.
Afghanistan’s human rights crisis has intensified under Taliban rule. Over the past four years, the group has imposed sweeping restrictions on women and girls, while ethnic and religious minorities continue to experience violations.
Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and HRW, along with Afghan civil society groups and activists, have repeatedly pushed for an international accountability mechanism. They argue it should be mandated to investigate violations, collect and preserve evidence, and lay the groundwork for potential prosecutions of serious crimes.
Despite multiple debates and resolutions on Afghanistan, the UN Human Rights Council has yet to establish the independent investigative body that advocates say is urgently needed to ensure justice and accountability.
