Last Updated on 09/09/2024 by Arun jain
Since the Taliban retook Afghanistan in 2021 promises That — this time — they will be more moderate, they have played a tricky game.
The Taliban government has issued one decree after another, gradually disappearing Women and girls have rights to education, employment, justice, freedom of speech and movement Gradually Criminalized their existence outside the home. Taliban leaders hit a new low last month when they released a A set of rules That, among other restrictions, it makes Illegal A woman’s voice to be heard in public by male strangers.
Each new tightening of the screws has drawn international condemnation — but no real consequences for the Taliban. The mullahs just wait for the outrage to die down first More access Their abusive regimes, unfazed by criticism, or the threat of consequences for violating international laws danger to lose badly needed Humanitarian aid.
But a potential new international treaty covering the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity could finally provide the world with more legal and diplomatic leverage — and a new way to hold the Taliban accountable for the oppression they have inflicted on millions of women in Afghanistan. This is an opportunity that cannot be wasted.
In October, A UN General Assembly Legal Committee will meet to decide whether the treaty should proceed to the formal negotiation stage. An attempt to create a better tool for action Crimes against humanity A growing alarm over conflicts in places like Myanmar, Ukraine, and Gaza has fueled the pact proposal To criminalize “gender apartheid”.
Inspired by the actions of the Taliban, the notion of making individuals and states that implement racial apartheid liable for criminal prosecution received global Traction. Last October, I almost joined 100 leading institutions, jurists and individualsincluding Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, Hillary Clinton and Gloria Steinem, signing a legal brief that defines gender apartheid as the institutionalized, systematic subjugation of one gender. The brief urges UN member states to codify crimes against humanity in the proposed treaty. Many countries have indicated their support for the proposal.
There is no better way to describe what women in Afghanistan face than gender apartheid. Issued by the Taliban in the last three years Dozens of commands Curtailing or removing basic rights of women and girls, while abolishing laws and agencies dedicated to protecting those rights. The former Ministry of Women Affairs, for example, was disbanded Restored by the Taliban and its edifice, the ministry is tasked with promoting virtue and repressing vice, enforcing the current government’s strict interpretation of Sharia law.
Today, when a woman is accompanied by a male relative outside the home as required by law, the legality of her dress, behavior—and now even her voice—is at the sole discretion of the Taliban’s ever-present moral enforcers. If any of them believe a violation has occurred, a woman can be taken into custody, where many have allegedly been subjected. torture and rape. The women of Afghanistan now suffer from one of the world’s The highest rate of gender-based violence, According to the United Nations. There have been women complaining about such violence Sent to jail.
Women are now effectively confined to the home and the only roles considered appropriate for them by the mullahs: care and childbirth. from men may be punished By the Taliban, if their female family members break the rules, women are in practice under the strict control of their own male relatives. All this is counterproductive for the nation: By banning women, including aid workers, from working outside the home, the Taliban are undermining the country’s economy and exacerbating its dire humanitarian crisis.
The Taliban’s new rules drag women deeper into an abyss that has no bottom. In addition to shaming women in public, the rules require women to completely conceal their faces and bodies and place new restrictions on their freedom of movement. I left Afghanistan in 2021 after Kabul fell to the Taliban, but my work as an activist in exile still puts me in touch with many women there who tell me that the latest rules have added to the obstacles they face in accessing even their most basic needs. increases. As one woman recently told me, even speaking to a shopkeeper to buy food is fraught when her voice is now considered “awrah”—a term that refers to intimate parts of the body that must be hidden to avoid tempting others and morally corrupting them. .
The codification of gender apartheid in international law will of course not automatically eliminate the crime, and bringing the perpetrators to account will not be easy. But it is an important first step toward providing victims and the global community with legal avenues to hold violators accountable and prevent other governments from committing similar crimes.
Apart from the legal aspect, international recognition of gender apartheid as a crime against humanity would have great moral force. Global condemnation of South Africa’s former apartheid regime fueled political, legal and social resistance efforts that ultimately contributed to the demise of that system and the subsequent classification of racial apartheid as a crime against humanity under the International Criminal Court.
There is still a lot of work to be done. If the UN committee agrees to move the treaty forward, a range of legal and other issues will need to be worked out, including the possible inclusion of gender discrimination as a crime, and the treaty will need to be ratified internationally.
Some countries It has expressed its openness to codifying gender apartheid as a crime against humanity in previous committee meetings. For this to become a legal reality, many more nations will need to step up and join in solidarity with the women of Afghanistan, especially countries that claim to be leaders on women’s rights or have female heads of state.
The alternative is to continue on the current path, with the world wringing its hands but doing essentially nothing to stop the Taliban from making Afghanistan’s women faceless, silent and invisible.
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