Taliban’s Legacy Includes Gender Apartheid And Genocide
(ANALYSIS) The legacy of the Taliban regime — which meant to be a new Taliban 2.0 but failed on all fronts — is gender apartheid, genocide and gross human rights violations.
The three years of their reign, since the fall of Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021, have been filled with report after report documenting the litany of atrocities perpetrated in the country.
Gender apartheid
Over the last three years, edict after edict, the Taliban have been removing women from the public space and confining them to their homes. These edicts prevent women from education, employment, public services and access to justice, among others. Violence against women intensified as well — at home and beyond.
Reports suggest that domestic violence is skyrocketing in Afghanistan. Women subjected to such violence have no recourse to justice. One woman said that when reporting the domestic violence to the police, she was told that she had only two options: One was to go back to her husband and apologize.
Second was to be sent to jail. In March 2024, the Taliban announced that they were resuming publicly stoning women to death, bringing back some of the darkest days of Taliban rule in the 1990s. This should not come as a surprise.
For the last three years, edict after edict, the Taliban have been shown that they can get away with anything — including violence against women, including with gender apartheid. Gender apartheid is not currently criminalized under international law, however, brave Afghan women join their calls to recognize the crime based on their experiences in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime.
The violations of the rights of women in Afghanistan, as seen in recent years, have had a profound effect on the women and girls in the country. The hopelessness brings many to suicide as they do not see any other way out of the situation. Civil society organizations report that suicide rates are skyrocketing. Taliban authorities have not published up-to-date data on the issue and reportedly have barred health workers from sharing it in multiple provinces.
Afghanistan’s Torkham crossing point on the border with Pakistan in November 2023. (Photo courtesy UN Women Asia and the Pacific)
Genocide
In 2022, months after the Taliban takeover, the Hazara Inquiry, a U.K. parliamentary inquiry into the situation of the Hazara in Afghanistan, warned about the serious risk of genocide against the community in Afghanistan and even some elements of the crime being already present.
These findings followed testimonies of victims/survivors and experts shining a light on the dire situation of the community, with regular attacks on Hazara schools, places of worship, and hospitals, among others.
In August, the American Bar Association, a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, adopted a resolution calling upon all governments to recognize and prevent further acts of genocide perpetrated against the Hazara people in Afghanistan. It further urged the United States Department of State Office of Global Criminal Justice to promote justice and accountability efforts to end impunity for genocide in Afghanistan; and urged the Congress to take action to strengthen national, regional and international frameworks for preventing mass atrocities in Afghanistan and protecting at-risk groups like the Hazara.
The resolution was accompanied by a report, which found that “the Hazara people have faced over a century of persecution and violence in Afghanistan at the hands of various rulers and regimes. The acts described in this report and resolution provide strong evidence that the Hazara are victims of genocide which requires urgent action, particularly by Congress and the U.S. State Department.”
Gross human rights violations
In addition to the above-discussed dire situation of women and girls, and of the Hazara in Afghanistan, gross human rights violations more broadly are a common occurrence, including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, attacks on journalists and human rights defenders and much more.
The attacks are to ensure that there is no viable opposition to the Taliban and their reign could continue without even the slightest criticism.
Despite this legacy of gender apartheid, genocide and gross human rights violations, states and the international community are moving in the dangerous direction of engaging with the Taliban without raising any of these issues.
Some countries such as China, Russia, Iran, Qatar, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, among others, have opened their offices in Kabul. Some countries in the region, including Pakistan, Iran, China, Russia, Qatar and UAE, have officially allowed Taliban representatives and diplomats in their countries.
There should be no engagement with the Taliban as long as they are perpetrating gender apartheid, genocide and gross human rights violations. Three years of the Taliban getting away with whatever horrific atrocities they perpetrate only embolden them to continue. Impunity always has this effect. Always.
This piece was republished from Forbes with permission.
Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab is a human rights advocate, author and co-founder of the Coalition for Genocide Response. She’s authored the book “Never Again: Legal Responses to a Broken Promise in the Middle East” and more than 30 UN reports. She works on the topic of genocide and persecution of ethnic and religious minorities around the world. She is on X @EwelinaUO.