UN Session to Recognize Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan

The United Nations recently had a session to recognize “gender apartheid” in Afghanistan for the first time as part of their efforts to support human rights. Representatives from different countries attended the session.

This session took place on Friday, featuring speeches by the UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan; Richard Bennett, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghan Women’s Rights; Rina Amiri, former Afghan representative to the UN; Adela Raz, the U.S. Deputy Representative for Global Affairs, Melanie Weaver and several other country representatives, on the sidelines of the 88th UN General Assembly.

During this session, speakers referred to the current situation in Afghanistan as an example of “gender apartheid” and called for practical actions to end this situation.

Richard Bennett remarked that the “global community has betrayed them [women in Afghanistan].” He added the current situation in Afghanistan can only be remedied through practical actions, not condemnations and expressions of sympathy.

It should be noted that the activism of women’s rights advocates, which began with the resurgence of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan to recognize gender apartheid officially, is ongoing and has recently been accompanied by hunger strikes by some girls in European countries and Pakistan.

Hunger strikes by Tamana Zaryab Paryany, and her supporters in Cologne, Germany, the silent hunger strike of Mina Rafiq in Norway, the hunger strike of Mohra Fabi in Sweden, and a collective hunger strike by women’s rights activists in Islamabad, Pakistan, have recently joined the campaign of women’s rights activists. Their common demand from the global community is to recognize “gender apartheid” in Afghanistan.

These protests have led to a meeting hosted by the United Nations, and the discussion of gender apartheid in Afghanistan has been scrutinized. Richard Bennett, alongside assessing the situation of women in Afghanistan, also called for preparing a report to address technical questions that may arise in the UN Security Council regarding gender apartheid in Afghanistan.

Over the past two years, Afghanistan has witnessed a significant gender gap emerging after the rise of the Taliban to power, resulting in an unprecedented disparity in access to resources, opportunities, and social, economic, and political rights.

Recently, a group of women known as the “Window of Hope Women’s Movement of Afghanistan” has also called for the recognition of “gender apartheid” in Afghanistan. They emphasized that the United Nations and human rights organizations breaking their silence and taking action to combat gender apartheid in Afghanistan are crucial.

Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Council’s report on the situation of women in Afghanistan has confirmed the existence of “gender apartheid” in Afghanistan and has described “sexual abuse and harassment” as continuing to lead to “sexual abuse and harassment,” which is a crime against humanity, and its occurrence in Afghanistan obliges international criminal courts to intervene.