Recent headlines brought a glimmer of hope to the women and girls whose lives under the Taliban have essentially been reduced to prison terms: Canada, Australia, Germany, and the Netherlands announced plans to bring the Taliban to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for gender discrimination.
As an Afghan woman, I have been horrified to witness the Taliban’s gradual campaign to stifle our rights, one by one. As a lawyer who grew up in an Afghanistan where I was allowed to work and study, I felt a responsibility to act in defense of my fellow Afghan women and girls.
Initially, I had hoped to campaign for formal international justice before an international tribunal. But I was soon deterred by the documentation required — documentation it would be daunting for a private practitioner to acquire at any time, let alone when essentially confined to their home. I then shifted my focus to raising public awareness of our plight, penning an open call for action. I wrote:
It’s astonishing that the ICC has yet to fully acknowledge the Taliban’s crimes against women and humanity under a broader definition. Afghan women and girls, comprising half of the nation’s population, are imploring the ICC, as the most powerful international tribunal, to investigate all crimes against women in Afghanistan and assist them in reclaiming their fundamental rights and the pursuit of social justice. They have an inherent right to live and participate in all aspects of society.
My plea joined a chorus of others in Afghanistan and abroad, and together we created and bolstered a movement for women’s rights in Afghanistan.
But despite continuous advocacy at every level over the past three years, activists have struggled to reclaim restricted rights, facing internal disagreements and disappointments. These challenges hindered progress and led to Afghan women being excluded from crucial discussions about our country’s future. The disunity caused confusion for the international community in providing practical support and assistance.
In a historic event this year, nearly 120 Afghan women from various countries gathered in Tirana, Albania, to unite and strategize against the Taliban. This summit, occurring just two weeks after the Taliban leader issued new morality rules banning women’s voices and faces from the public, provided a vital platform for collaboration and established a woman-centric narrative for sustainable peace. Since the fall of the former Afghan government in August 2021, Afghan women have felt like the sole force standing against the regime, using our voices and words as our weapons.
The unity achieved at the Albania summit has strengthened our voices and garnered international support. As a women’s rights activist, I couldn’t attend but applaud our female leaders for their extraordinary efforts to speak up about our situation, especially in the face of the Taliban’s attempts to silence women’s voices. Hollywood actress Meryl Streep aptly described our plight at a UN General Assembly event: “Today in Kabul, a female cat has more freedom than a woman. A cat may sit on her front stoop and feel the sun on her face; she may chase a squirrel in the park.”
The Taliban’s systematic gender apartheid has dehumanized women to the point where our condition is comparable to that of animals. As Streep noted, “A squirrel has more rights than a girl in Afghanistan today because public parks have been closed to women and girls by the Taliban. A bird may sing in Kabul, but a girl may not in public. This is extraordinary. This is a suppression of the natural law.”
On September 25, at the UN General Assembly, Canada, Australia, Germany, and the Netherlands announced their intention to take the Taliban to the ICJ for gender discrimination. This marks the first time the ICJ has been used by countries to challenge another over gender discrimination. In this first legal move of its type since the Taliban took over, it is expected that Afghanistan would have six months to provide a response before the ICJ would hold a hearing and likely propose provisional measures.
The case is being initiated under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979 and came into force in 1981. Afghanistan ratified this convention in 2003.
I would argue that both the ICC and ICJ have jurisdiction over Afghanistan. They can prosecute the Taliban regime as a perpetrator state in the ICJ and individual Taliban leaders, who are directly responsible for restrictions and violations against women’s rights, in the ICC court.
This legal action represents a beacon of hope for Afghan women and girls. It acknowledges our suffering and struggles and signals that the international community is finally taking concrete steps to support our fight for fundamental rights and social justice. As part of this movement, I am hopeful that our continuous advocacy and the unity we’ve achieved will lead to meaningful change and the restoration of rights for women and girls in Afghanistan.
The author is an Afghan legal scholar who cannot be identified at this time due to security concerns.
