More than three years since the military takeover by Taliban in 2021, Afghanistan remains engulfed in a severe human rights crisis. Extrajudicial killings, public executions, flogging in stadiums, and other forms of corporal punishment, arbitrary detentions, torture and disappearances of former government officials, members of the national security forces, judges, lawyers, human rights defenders, journalists, [...]
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 [...]
As the Taliban continues its ever-expanding efforts to keep women and girls out of the public eye, one Afghan woman is leveraging her business acumen to challenge the new status quo. In late August, the Taliban issued a new law restricting women’s voices and faces in public spaces, the latest steps in their ongoing campaign [...]
In June, Richard Bennett, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, called for an “all tools” approach to challenge and dismantle the Taliban’s institutionalized system of gender oppression and hold those responsible accountable in his report to the Human Rights Council. Despite international efforts and pressure on the Taliban to reverse [...]
Afghan women vow to tirelessly work until the Taliban are held accountable for gender apartheid in Afghanistan. In a step towards recognizing the crimes committed against half of the population, Amnesty International recently called for an end to the regime’s impunity: In a powerful show of global solidarity, 354,847 signatures have been collected calling on [...]
Nearly two decades have passed, but Sammy remembers his father’s words clearly. Then a young professional, Sammy was out for a walk with his family in 2007 when they came across a convoy of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) vehicles, he told me in a recent interview. His little brother asked what ISAF was, and [...]
As the United Nations prepares for its third meeting of international envoys on Afghanistan in Doha, concerns are mounting over the exclusion of Afghan women from the process and the lack of focus on the Taliban’s gender apartheid policies. The plights of women like Arzo — a teacher and a single mother of four — [...]
Nooria — an Afghan refugee in Turkey — faces unbelievable hardships and the daily fear of deportation. Undaunted, she refuses to return to the Taliban’s gender apartheid state in Afghanistan. Before the Taliban’s resurgence, Nooria had a comfortable position with the US Government in Kabul. But following threats from the regime, the 40-year-old fled, and [...]
President Claudia Sheinbaum’s electoral victory in Mexico serves as a beacon of hope and inspiration for women and girls in Afghanistan. Her historic win as Mexico’s first female president is all the more remarkable given that her Jewish faith; the fact that Jews comprise a tiny minority in the overwhelmingly Catholic nation was a non-issue [...]
The presumption of innocence is a fundamental principle underpinning the right to a fair trial. This may be broadly understood as a fundamental human right, but its protection is far from universal. Since retaking control of Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban has made the systematic punishment of women and girls a core part of its [...]
