End Gender Apartheid (Webinar With Me)

The Webinar With Me series lives on... and for deeply important reasons.

My ongoing goal with this blog and the reason I started it in the first place, was to make known and accessible often complicated political information relating to systemic oppression. Today, I will be discussing a topic near and dear to my heart, which I viscerally believe more people need to know about as soon as possible.

Right to Learn Afghanistan, a 25-year-old Toronto-based charity formerly known as Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, kindly invited me to attend their panel discussion this past Tuesday on how to advance international accountability to end gender apartheid.

In hopes that this topic reaches more people, I'd like to bring you into this discussion by reporting on this zoom event.

In a great turnout of diverse attendees, the “Advancing International Accountability to End Gender Apartheid” panel was hosted by Right to Learn’s Director, Nazila Jamshidi, with speakers:

• Yalda Royan, Internationally recognized Human Rights Advocate

• Ewelina Ochab, Lawyer & Human Rights Defender

• Annie Pforzheimer, previous US Department of State Diplomat, acting security for the state of Afghanistan

On the agenda was the current international campaign for recognizing gender apartheid as a crime under criminal law, and what the strategy is for the actors involved (for example; sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and advocacy). To reflect one underlying question: “Will leaders and countries allow a regime to systematically exclude women and girls from everyday life?”

This preamble is all to justify that the following information is coming from well-informed and well-connected professionals actively working in these fields. 

I will start by admitting that the situation is bleak. My need to write about and share this is very largely due to that reality. I think it’s important that we speak openly and directly with one another, in the most blunt and truthful ways, since that is sometimes the only way to understand the severity of the situation (which those directly impacted don’t have the privilege to minimize). So, in an effort to feel useful amidst these atrocities, I did what I know how to do: wrote an article.

It’s difficult to know where to start, so I’m going to get right into it. 

Ever since the Taliban reclaimed occupation of Afghanistan in 2021, it has left the country extremely controlled and exclusionary to women, with a high degree of dictatorship over both people and resources in the entire country. Many political leaders have already classified it as the most extreme example of gender apartheid in the world today.

For an understanding of what gender apartheid is and how it works:

What is Gender Apartheid?

The deliberate construction of power built on the exclusion of women and girls.

How is Gender Apartheid constructed?

1) Collective punishment to control families and the behaviours of families (for example, targeting the man in the family if they don’t embed exclusionary policies)

2) Policies recognizing people as slaves and masters

3) Human dignity applied differently based on people’s status and sex

4) Women as subordinates to men (this is directly how apartheid works)

What does Gender Apartheid look like in Afghanistan Right Now?

“We are not allowed to speak to hospital guards, drivers, or men in general unless absolutely necessary. If we do, intelligence officials or male guardians come and interrogate us. The first time, they issue a warning; the second time, we will be dismissed from our jobs.” Afghan woman, Helmand province.

This recent UN report created by the Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan written in February 23, 2026 revealed that:

• Taliban rule has ushered in a widespread and systemic attack on women and girls restricting their rights to education, work, freedom of movement, health, access to justice, freedoms of expression, and participation in public life.

• Since returning to power, the Taliban has enforced a system of governance rooted in patriarchal gender stereotypes designed to strip women of their rights and agency.

• Restrictions are imposed through coercive measures including physical violence, and ideological indoctrination.

• A highly repressive social order is being normalized, in which women’s and girls’ autonomy is progressively erased - with profound consequences for physical and mental health, health-seeking behaviour, and survival.

• The return of the Taliban has imposed new barriers that severely limit women’s and girls’ access to health systems and their capacity to make autonomous decisions about their bodies and their health (many contraceptive methods require the husband’s consent)

• Taliban authorities have suspended girls’ education beyond grade six, restricted women’s participation in many forms of paid work, and effectively excluded them from public life - intensifying a range of interrelated abuses – such as child and early marriage.

• Taliban policies have eliminated key coping mechanisms, including social interaction, outdoor activities, education and artistic expression.

• With women's power to make independent decisions limited, which has been exacerbated by Taliban restrictions on women’s employment, job losses resulting from the economic crisis enforce dependence on male relatives.

• Since the Taliban regained power, the requirement of a male guardian and stricter dress codes for women to leave the house were formally codified in August 2024 in the so-called law on the promotion of virtue - and have significantly hindered women's freedom of movement, including being prevented from travelling independently or denied entry on arrival at health facilities.

• The requirement of having a male guardian when in public is especially challenging for widows, internally displaced and returnee women, separated or unaccompanied women and girls, those whose men have a disability, those who may not have family support, and LGBT+ women.

• In Balkh province, a woman was forced to deliver her baby at the hospital gate after being denied entry without a man. Another could not take her four-year-old son to hospital while her husband was away; by the time she reached a hospital hours later it was too late and the child died.

• In Herat province, a woman witnessed another woman turned away from a dental clinic and left screaming in pain.

• The male-guardian requirement also severely restricts women health workers’ ability to work or travel to treat patients. In some provinces, a man must accompany a woman to and from her workplace, while in others he must remain nearby throughout her shift.

• Men also reported being subjected to verbal abuse for “allowing” or supporting their female relatives to work. To quote an Afghan official: "Even if someone paid me one hundred thousand Afghanis (USD 1,500) per month, I would not allow my wife to go to work."

• As restrictions on women’s movement, work, and social engagement continue, Taliban policies are increasing exposure to family and intimate partner violence, reinforcing cycles of gender-based harm.

• Women and girls face major challenges maintaining menstrual health and hygiene, and many women and girls experience shame linked to their inability to maintain hygiene, exacerbating social withdrawal and psychological distress.

• In December 2024, the Taliban issued a directive banning women from attending medical and health training institutions. As a result, medical, nursing, midwifery, laboratory, and other clinical programs for women were forced to close. This ban could lead to unnecessary suffering, illness, and deaths, and could amount to femicide (the killing of a woman or girl, in particular by a man and on account of her gender).

• Patriarchal norms are often portrayed as culturally fixed, but Afghan women have actively negotiated and contested them, demonstrating that gender roles are socially constructed and dynamic.

The Intersectional Impact of Gender Apartheid  

Intersectionality is the overlap between different factors of one’s identity (like ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, race) that are used as grounds for political, social, and economic exclusion.  

In the example of Afghanistan, Hazara women are not only discriminated against due their womanhood, but are also historically discriminated against under forms of marginalization for ethnicity. Forced displacement, limitations on freedom and practice of faith, and pressure to convert to Islam are the most common and consistent forms of this, still very present today.

What's Being Done (and Why it’s Not Working) 

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has total jurisdiction over Afghanistan. While the situation was being looked at, the Republic of Afghanistan had asked the ICC to stall their responses so that Afghan legal courts within the country could investigate the crimes of the Taliban themselves. As they were doing so, the Taliban re-took the country in 2021, and legal infrastructure fell through. 

To date, some arrest warrants have gone out by the ICC for very specific men who are the most responsible for high level crimes. However, this drastically leaves out all of the middle men involved with the logistics of said crimes. This is why we now have to look at other avenues to hold the Taliban accountable; namely, codifying gender apartheid. 

1. Working towards the codification of gender apartheid 

The idea here is that by legally making gender apartheid a criminal act (and codifying it within the law), it can allow for gender-based prosecution so that legal actors can begin holding the Taliban accountable for the injustices.

Currently, the definition of “apartheid” is legally limited to racial domination - the existing legal definition does NOT include gender-based systems. Meaning, even if a system looks identical to "apartheid" in structure (segregation, exclusion, control), it doesn’t qualify as “apartheid” legally unless it’s racially motivated.

"The existing international legal architecture does not fully prohibit institutionalized regimes of systematic gender oppression such as the one currently imposed in Afghanistan. Consequently, the necessary tools to fully define such crimes, address their intentional and institutionalized nature, and hold both state actors and individuals accountable for the totality of violations are lacking." - The Special Rapporteur, UN

We don't know if gender apartheid will even be included in international policy, and even if it is, the codification of gender apartheid could take some time; anywhere between 5-20 years.

Therefore, it's also important to seek other avenues for support and advocacy... 

Avenues:

a) The Principle of Universal Jurisdiction

In theory, universal jurisdiction enables people to use domestic courts to investigate and prosecute international crime. Currently, they are working on this in the UK, so that if a member of the Taliban travels to the UK, they could be prosecuted for an international crime.

But the process to add gender apartheid to universal jurisdiction in the UK has been stalled because the amendment did not receive enough information at the time of support to pass.

b) The Private Member’s bill

The idea with private member’s bills is to allow legal amendments to be suggested to the government which don't already exist.

Bills are picked randomly from a hat to ensure fairness - it doesn't matter who you are or what you’re party is about, everyone’s suggestions are treated equally. The recent proposal to codify gender apartheid as a crime against humanity was not picked as one of the bills to consider. 

If private members bill is successful, it can still take a few years to apply, and it would only be one country with ability to prosecute.

2. Sanctions 

Sanctions are penalties and restrictions imposed by countries/international bodies to punish or pressure foreign governments. They usually act as a signal against impunity (to show that there are consequences for actions and no one is exempt from punishment for injustice).

Sanctions are an imperfect but an important tool. They can send a powerful message before official policy catches up. In this case, they would be a push against the normalization that what the Taliban is doing is "appropriate" or "cultural".

When only done by a single country, sanctions can be seen as a “Western” strategy. However, UN sanctions can speak for the whole world. The most commonly used are terrorist sanctions, not human rights sanctions.

One of the panelists used 1970s South Africa as an example for how sanctions can work (when used stragtigically). In the 1970s & 1980s, a variety of sanctions, including economic, tourism, arms, and sports sanctions, were placed on South Africa by the UN for the government’s active apartheid regime. As a result, the regime was forced to recognize it had no legitimacy or economic power without the support of international governments, and it eventually left office without escalating a civil war. Other than present-day Afghanistan, South Africa’s apartheid is the only other example of a country's seat being removed from New York's UN headquarters. 

The UN sanctions that currently exist on Afghanistan only list 150 people - they are not against the whole Taliban regime - and are also limited in what they ban. Meaning, these personalized sanctions only apply to individual people, not the entire country, so they are easy to get around. The Chinese government has also asked for these bans to be lifted.

3. Highlight international voices against Afghan rule

The only way to achieve justice against regimes as nasty as this one is to be as relentless as the enemy.

During these discussions, it's important to uphold a clear and consistent narrative. As we all know, today’s political climate is a messy and overwhelming one, and it’s easy to feel lost and confused about what’s going on. Our Call-to-Actions must be extremely clear and we need to amplify and celebrate those with power who are actively speaking out against Taliban rule.

Unfortunately, it feels like so much of what needs to happen is in the hands of the political actors. I'm sitting in that pain and discomfort with you. I'm also here to remind you what is still in your power, and it's not nothing.

What Now?

Human rights need to be at the centre of any engagement with the Taliban, which means elevating the voices, stories, and people on the ground who can strengthen real-life accounts of what’s happening. Look for their voices and listen.

Be unafraid to recognize and point out gender apartheid (the exclusion of women from everyday life and the limitation of their education and freedoms). Use the information you gained here to support political dialogue in both public and private spaces to bring light to these topics in your communities. 

Recognize that women's rights are a basic prerequisite for peace and security. 

Understand this struggle as a wider problem that effects us all: the whole globe and the international community. The goal is to ensure that no authority anywhere will be capable of building a regime based on the exclusion of woman.

Look for petitions. Whenever possible, message your leaders for gender apartheid advocacy.

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It’s hard to consolidate the passion and empathy I feel towards this subject when speaking, and even writing about it. 

I believe that being informed is a FORM of social advocacy; the first step of advocating for justice is understanding where the threat is coming from and how it’s operating.

The presenters at this panel discussion did an amazing job describing the nuances of the deeply complicated and historical issue of gender apartheid in present day Afghanistan.