This dispatch was co-authored by Divyabharthi Baradhan (JURIST Staff, Malaysia) and Sarisha Harikrishna (Queen’s University Belfast School of Law, United Kingdom).

In a landmark ruling, the Permanent People’s Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan (the tribunal) on December 11 in the Hague, Netherlands, found that the Taliban de facto authorities have committed crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute, and violated Afghanistan’s binding obligations under international human rights treaties. The judgment follows a public hearing on the situation of women in Afghanistan, held at the Madrid Bar Association (ICAM) from October 8 to 10.

Before the judgment was read out, the panel commended Afghan women for their bravery and for sharing their lived experiences. The bravery of these women echoed through the judgment of the tribunal, capturing the impact of long-overdue justice against gender persecution committed by Taliban authorities. “This is not just my story, this is the story of all women and girls in Afghanistan,” one witness testified during the hearing, and their relentless pursuit of justice was reflected throughout the testimony.

The tribunal consisted of Rashida Manjoo (South Africa), Elisenda Calvet-Martínez (Spain), Mai El-Sadany (Egypt/United States), Marina Forti (Italy), Araceli García del Soto (Spain), Ghizaal Haress (Afghanistan), Emilio Ramírez Matos (Spain), and Kalpana Sharma (India). The racial, gender, and geographical diversity of this panel attests to the world’s collective commitment to the rule of law and to upholding women’s rights.

The indictment was brought against the Taliban’s supreme leader and various ministers under the Taliban administration, including the interior minister, defense minister, and higher religious affairs minister. It further implicates the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Taliban as a group, and the state of Afghanistan.

On the one hand, this demonstrates how the rule of law applies equally to everyone, regardless of the perpetrators’ power and title. On the other hand, it suggests that Afghanistan’s rule of law is in shambles when the Supreme Court itself fails to respect the equal rights of women.

The case, brought by civil society organizations and human rights defenders, centered on the crimes committed from 2021 to this date. In particular, crimes of gender persecution as crimes against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute, other inhumane acts under the Rome Statute, and Afghanistan’s obligations under international human rights treaties.

Article 7 of the statute penalizes the perpetration of one of the four major international crimes. During the judgment session, the tribunal described a “coordinated, State-level campaign” carried out with the intent “to erase women from public life and to restructure Afghan society around male supremacy.” Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban have issued over 250 edicts and decrees, with at least 157 specifically targeting the rights of women and girls, creating what the judges observed as a “deliberate” system of “structural injustice.”

Persecution is defined as the intentional and organized denial of fundamental rights within a framework of discriminatory governance. This interpretation has been established in the jurisprudence of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In the case of Prosecutor v. Al-Hassan, the first ICC case to confirm charges of gender persecution, the Trial Chamber observed that an act of persecution under Article 7 encompasses discriminatory measures that gravely violate basic rights. The Chamber also noted that a broad range of acts falls under the definition of persecution, including restriction of movement to certain places and times, exclusions from professions, denial of access to public services, and restrictions on family life.

While the judgment firmly establishes that the Taliban’s conduct amounts to gender persecution under international law, the tribunal found that the Taliban’s conduct—which meets the elements of apartheid as an “institutionalized regime of segregation, exclusion, and domination”—does not constitute a crime under international law. This is because international law currently defines apartheid only on racial grounds, excluding gender grounds. Instead, according to the tribunal’s judgment session, the judges emphasized that the codification of gender apartheid “remains an important advocacy and standard-setting initiative.”

The tribunal further detailed the deeply entrenched patriarchal system in Afghanistan, built upon customary, tribal, and religious structures that place men in positions of authority and limit women’s autonomy. There were systematic and targeted attacks against the rights of women and girls across every period of the Taliban rule, with women systematically excluded from public life. The Taliban’s treatment of women has shown a consistent pattern across their first regime from 1996 to 2001, again as an insurgent movement from 2001 to 2021, and finally their rule from August 2021 to now.

The judgment called for urgent action from the international community, asserting that normalizing relations with the Taliban would only embolden the regime, undermine decades of human rights work, and severely harm Afghan women.

During testimony, witnesses also highlighted their lived experiences under the Taliban’s de facto control. In particular, one witness said, “While in prison, I suffered both physical and psychological torture. I was repeatedly insulted, humiliated, and threatened by the Taliban guards. At that time, I was two months pregnant. Every moment I feared for my life. Because of the torture, I suffered severe bleeding and miscarried my child.”

In 2022, the Taliban sparked global outrage when they banned women and girls from obtaining secondary and higher education. They have since excluded women from Parliament and from holding positions in the judiciary. Excluding women from many forms of employment—including midwifery—condemns them to economic dependence and poverty, and severely restricts their freedom of movement.

Requiring women to be accompanied by a male guardian (called a “mahram”) in public places and prohibiting access to public spaces like parks and gyms reduces women to being dependent on their spouses and male family members. Dehumanizing measures such as arbitrarily detaining, kidnapping, and torturing women and girls have drawn significant criticism from the international community.

During the session, the tribunal emphasized that it seeks to “combat impunity, acknowledge victims’ voices, and end the silence that erodes accountability of alleged perpetrators of crimes.” Despite lacking binding judicial authority, the tribunal has served as a powerful mechanism “for many survivors, victims, and witnesses to share their stories, voice their pain, expose the truth, achieve recognition, seek reparations, restore dignity, and foster collective healing.”

With ongoing multiple international efforts to hold the perpetrators accountable, the petitioners brought this case to the tribunal “out of necessity, and not by choice,” viewing it as an “additional and immediate accountability tool.” They sought to address the generational impact of the current situation and its implications for women’s rights beyond Afghanistan.

The judgment concludes a process initiated by Afghan human rights organizations and marks a new beginning for international and moral reckoning. Although it serves to uphold moral justice for the victims by acknowledging their plight, true justice can only be done when there is real change in Afghanistan, with the unelected Taliban government stepping down, and women’s rights restored.