Report – The Taliban’s war on women: The crime against humanity of gender persecution in Afghanistan

UpRights welcomes the publication of the report “The Taliban’s war on women: The crime against humanity of gender persecution in Afghanistan”. The report, jointly published by Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), with legal and analytical support from UpRights, details how human rights violations against women and girls under Taliban rule in Afghanistan may amount to crimes against humanity and, in particular, gender persecution.

Following the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021, the human rights of women and girls in Afghanistan have been progressively curtailed, despite initial assurances by the Taliban to uphold their rights. Gradually, the Taliban have implemented a series of policies to oppress and exclude women and girls from society with any meaningful form of public participation now prohibited.

The report details how actions taken by the Taliban’s de facto authorities have actively restricted the human rights of women and girls. These are in direct contravention of rights guaranteed under international human rights treaties to which Afghanistan is a party. Restrictions include: preventing women from moving freely and dressing as they choose; bans on education beyond primary school; exclusion from a wide range of professions, including from working with NGOs and the UN office in Afghanistan, and refusal to grant political appointments or public positions. The de facto Taliban authorities have also suppressed any instance of resistance against these policies through the use of intimidation, persecution, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, and other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

The joint report highlights how the policies adopted by the Taliban severely curtail the human rights of women and girls, including the rights to education and work, and to the freedom of movement, expression, association, and peaceful assembly, as well as the rights to equality and non-discrimination. The new joint report provides an extensive legal assessment suggesting that such human rights violations to which women and girls are subjected can amount to international crimes under international law and in particular to the crime against humanity of gender persecution according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Through a detailed legal analysis, to which UpRights provided analytical support, the report also underlines how the incidents of arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and other ill-treatment committed against women and girls accused of so-called “moral offenses” or for their participation in peaceful protests or other exercise of their human rights may further amount to the crimes against humanity of imprisonment, enforced disappearance and torture under Article 7(1) of the Rome Statute

The report covers the period from August 2021 to January 2023 and builds on Amnesty International’s previous investigative report “Death in Slow Motion: Women and Girls Under Taliban Rule”. The important analysis contained in the report would not have been possible without the cooperation between Amnesty International and the ICJ.