Over 100 Organizations: Kabul Authorities’ Laws Amount to Gender Apartheid and Crimes Against Humanity

More than 100 civil society, women’s rights and human rights organizations have issued a joint statement condemning the policies and laws imposed by the ruling authorities in Afghanistan, describing them as gender apartheid, slavery and crimes against humanity.

The statement says that regulations enforced by the ruling group, including the penal code of Kabul courts and the so-called law on the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, have led to the systematic and deliberate exclusion of women from social, educational, professional and public life. According to the signatories, these measures have placed millions of women and girls under structural violence, poverty, forced confinement and total deprivation of human dignity.

The organizations stress that the enforced regulations institutionalize gender, religious and class-based discrimination and violate fundamental human rights, including the right to life, equality before the law, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and the right to a fair trial. They argue that these policies meet all elements of crimes against humanity as defined under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The statement calls on the International Criminal Court to launch independent and comprehensive investigations aimed at prosecuting those responsible for these policies. It also urges the United Nations, the European Union and the international community to formally recognize these acts as crimes against humanity and gender apartheid, impose targeted sanctions on those involved and ensure protection, support and asylum for women, girls and other victims.

The signatories further emphasize that the ruling group should not be recognized as the legitimate government of Afghanistan and call on international bodies to establish an independent mechanism to document and pursue these alleged crimes.