KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Afghanistan under Taliban rule has become a “graveyard for human rights,” Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said, citing a series of Taliban decrees and laws that he said are having a “crushing impact” on the Afghan people, especially women and girls.
Speaking at a session of the UN Human Rights Council on Afghanistan on Thursday, Türk said women and girls in Afghanistan face extreme gender-based discrimination and oppression that amounts to persecution.
He said the Taliban have effectively criminalized the presence of women and girls in public life, barred them from secondary and higher education, excluded them from most employment, and restricted access to healthcare, freedom of movement, civic participation, and expression.
Türk called for the codification of “gender apartheid” as a crime against humanity. “Defining gender apartheid is essential to ending it,” he said. “I fully support efforts to codify gender apartheid, among other crimes, in the proposed Treaty for the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity.”
He urged the Taliban to repeal discriminatory laws and policies, end capital and corporal punishment, halt arbitrary arrests and detentions, lift media restrictions, and allow journalists, including women, to work freely without fear. He also called on UN member states to keep human rights central in any engagement with Taliban authorities.
Speaking at the event, Richard Bennett, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, echoed Türk’s remarks, saying his latest report reinforces earlier findings that the Taliban systematically deprive women and girls of their fundamental rights, constituting a crime against humanity.
Bennett described a deepening human rights and public health crisis under Taliban rule, with women and girls disproportionately affected. Decades of war, poverty, underinvestment, and reliance on foreign aid have left Afghanistan’s health system fragile, he said, worsened by cuts in international assistance. Taliban policies preventing women and girls from accessing essential services, he added, have caused further harm, especially for minority and marginalized communities.
“The human rights situation in Afghanistan is gradually worsening,” Bennett told the council, recalling his warning a year earlier that the Taliban were cementing control over people’s lives and the situation would deteriorate.
“Under autocratic regimes, things tend to go from bad to worse in stages, step by step,” he said. “What yesterday seemed outrageous becomes normalized today.”
“Are we normalizing the outrageous actions of the Taliban while Afghans endure the consequences?” he asked.
Bennett welcomed the council’s recent decision to establish an independent investigative mechanism on Afghanistan and expressed hope that it would become operational soon. Accountability, he said, is critical to addressing violations.
“All accountability processes matter,” Bennett said, adding that countries should increase practical support for the Afghan population in ways that do not benefit the Taliban unless their policies, particularly those targeting women and girls, are reversed.
Meanwhile, in a joint statement, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand expressed deep concern about the worsening human rights crisis in Afghanistan. Delivered by Australia’s representative, the statement said Taliban regulations show a deliberate disregard for Afghanistan’s obligations under international law, including human rights law.
The statement criticized the Taliban’s new criminal code, saying it normalizes domestic violence, increases discrimination, and undermines fair trial guarantees. It added that these measures threaten regional stability and Afghanistan’s re-engagement with the international community.
“We reiterate our calls for respect for human rights in accordance with Afghanistan’s obligations under international law,” the joint statement said.
