Afghanistan five years on: IBAHRI calls for accountability as Taliban entrench discrimination against women and girls
Five years after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan on 15 August 2021, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) renews its calls for sustained international action to address the systematic erosion of human rights and to ensure accountability for violations of international law.
The IBAHRI is particularly concerned that during this time, the rights of women and girls have been systematically dismantled through decrees, policies and practices that entrench discrimination and deny access to education, employment, freedom of movement, participation in public life and effective legal remedies, among others.
Mark Stephens CBE, IBAHRI Co-Chair, stated: ‘Five years of Taliban rule have demonstrated that these are not isolated abuses but a systematic assault on fundamental rights, increasingly entrenched through law and policy. Afghanistan remains bound by its international obligations, including under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women [CEDAW]. The international community must use every available legal and diplomatic avenue to challenge these violations and ensure that the Taliban cannot treat international law as optional. Accountability is essential to protecting those whose rights are being systematically denied.’
The IBAHRI calls on the international community to:
- maintain sustained diplomatic pressure on the Taliban de facto authorities to comply with Afghanistan’s international human rights obligations;
- advance accountability under international law, including through the CEDAW proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC);
- support effective international documentation and investigation of human rights violations and international crimes in Afghanistan;
- ensure meaningful participation of Afghan women and girls in international accountability, policy and diplomatic processes concerning their rights and future;
- strengthen access to justice and protection mechanisms for women and girls who experience discrimination, violence and other human rights violations;
- maintain humanitarian assistance and ensure that responses to food insecurity, malnutrition, displacement and other humanitarian needs uphold human rights; and
- reject impunity and ensure that engagement with the Taliban de facto authorities does not undermine Afghanistan’s continuing obligations under international law.
Systematic discrimination against women and girls
Since the Taliban takeover in 2021, restrictions on women and girls have become increasingly embedded in the legal and institutional framework imposed by the de facto authorities.
In Afghanistan, women and girls have been excluded from secondary and higher education and large areas of employment. They can be flogged in public; are prohibited from moving freely; banned from public spaces such as parks, gyms and bathhouses; cannot access healthcare without a chaperone; and have been subjected to rules governing their appearance and speech, including being punished for speaking in public.
Recent legal measures demonstrate the continuing erosion of protections. In 2026, the Taliban introduced the Code on Judicial Separation of Spouses, Decree No 18, which removed the minimum age for marriage – effectively decriminalising child marriage. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has expressed serious concerns about the Decree’s discriminatory provisions, including limits on women’s access to judicial separation and provisions implying that girls who have reached puberty may be married, with silence treated as consent.
The new criminal code, adopted in January, further reduced protections from domestic violence by significantly lowering the level of punishment. Among its provisions, a husband convicted of beating his wife may face a maximum sentence of a mere 15 days imprisonment if it results in ‘a broken bone, or an open wound, or a black and blue wound.’
These measures illustrate how gender discrimination is being institutionalised through law and the administration of justice. The Taliban has full control over Afghanistan’s courts, leaving women and girls unprotected and without access to legal remedy.
The IBAHRI has characterised this system of systematic discrimination as gender apartheid and continues to advocate for international recognition of and action against such entrenched gender-based discrimination.
Hina Jilani, IBAHRI Co-Chair, commented: 'Afghan women and girls are being denied the ability to participate as equal members of society. When a legal system restricts their education, movement, family life, work and access to justice on the basis of their sex, the consequences are profound. There can be no meaningful remedy when the institutions that should provide justice are themselves controlled by those imposing the restrictions. The international community must stand with Afghan women and ensure that their voices are central to every effort to secure justice and accountability.
International accountability mechanisms
The IBAHRI highlights the importance of pursuing accountability through mechanisms addressing both State responsibility and individual criminal responsibility.
CEDAW and State responsibility
In September 2024, Australia, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands invoked the dispute-settlement procedure under Article 29 of CEDAW concerning Afghanistan’s violations of its obligations under the Convention. The four States called on Afghanistan to comply with its obligations under CEDAW, which requires States parties to eliminate discrimination against women and ensure the equal enjoyment of their rights.
The Article 29 process provides for negotiations between the parties and, if the dispute cannot be resolved, arbitration. The case is still in the mediation stage, in which a ‘genuine attempt’ at dialogue between the States to resolve the issue must be made. Under the Convention, a dispute may ultimately be referred to the ICJ. If taken to court, this will be the first case before the ICJ addressing discrimination against women.
ICC and individual criminal responsibility
The ICC is separately investigating the situation in Afghanistan. In 2022, the ICC authorised an investigation into allegations of crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan by the Taliban. In 2025 the ICC Prosecutor issued two arrest warrants for the Supreme Leader of the Taliban, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and the Chief Justice of the ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’, Abdul Hakim Haqqani for crimes against humanity, under Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute.
The Prosecutor’s applications alleged that the Taliban’s persecution of women and girls formed part of a widespread and systematic attack against Afghanistan’s civilian population and involved severe deprivation of fundamental rights on gender grounds. The ICC process addresses individual criminal responsibility, complementing the CEDAW process, which concerns Afghanistan’s responsibility as a de facto authority.
IBAHRI’s work on gender apartheid and accountability
The IBAHRI continues its global awareness-raising campaign following the publication of the 2024 Gender Apartheid Inquiry, which examined the treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan and Iran, including the ways in which systemic discrimination can deprive women of equal status and fundamental freedoms.
In 2025, the IBAHRI published its Gender Apartheid: Parliamentary Advocacy Toolkit, advocating for parliamentary action to address gender discrimination and strengthen accountability. The IBAHRI also supported the adoption of an UN-mandated accountability mechanism to document and investigate the full scope of human rights violations in Afghanistan.
In November 2025, on the fringe of the IBA Annual Conference in Toronto, the IBAHRI delivered a training and a roundtable with Afghan women. In October 2026, on the sidelines of the IBA Annual Conference in Copenhagen, the IBAHRI plans further engagement with Afghan women and organisations, supporting them in Denmark and neighbouring countries.
Humanitarian crisis and displacement
The IBAHRI is deeply concerned with the levels of malnutrition and mental health crisis unfolding in Afghanistan. Following cuts to foreign aid globally, women and children are facing life-threatening malnutrition, and clinics are forced to turn them away. Hotline operators for the World Food Programme have reported the hopelessness of many women, who cannot feed themselves or their families, with many resorting to desperate measures such as suicide or selling their daughters to access food.
Resources are under further extended due to the mass expulsion of Afghan refugees from Iran and Pakistan. Almost six million Afghans have been expelled since 2023. The UN reported that the paucity of international aid and funding shortages have left 14 million Afghans facing acute hunger. Not only does this violate international obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention but it also endangers vulnerable populations.
Baroness Helena Kennedy LT KC, IBAHRI Director, commented: ‘The Taliban’s rule of half a decade has created a profound crisis of rights, justice and human dignity and a society that allows husbands to beat their wives, removes any freedom of movement from women and girls and prevents any accountability for these violations. Afghan women and girls have been systematically excluded from public life and deprived of meaningful legal protection. Alongside this, millions of Afghans face the additional pressures of hunger, displacement and a collapsing humanitarian environment. It is critical that the international community delivers both humanitarian assistance and accountability and that impunity does not become the defining legacy of Taliban rule.’
The Institute emphasises that the passage of time must not diminish the need for international condemnation of human rights violations in Afghanistan and efforts to hold those responsible to account. Afghanistan remains subject to its international legal obligations, while international mechanisms are available to address both the responsibility of the State and individual responsibility for international crimes.
**ENDS**
Contact: IBAHRI@int-bar.org
Notes:
- Related material: In December 2025, the People’s Tribunal for Women in Afghanistan, an independent, international opinion tribunal, issued a judgment that the Taliban’s actions amount to ‘Other Inhumane Acts’ under the Rome Statute; that the systemic discrimination against women constitutes gender persecution; and that the State of Afghanistan has violated the human rights of women and girls.
- The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI), established in 1995 under Founding Honorary President Nelson Mandela, is an autonomous entity working to promote, protect and enforce human rights under a just rule of law, and to preserve the independence of the judiciary and the legal profession worldwide.
- Find the IBAHRI on social media here:
- The International Bar Association (IBA), the global voice of the legal profession, is the foremost organisation for international legal practitioners, bar associations and law societies. Established in 1947, shortly after the creation of the United Nations, with the aim of protecting and promoting the rule of law globally, the IBA was born out of the conviction that an organisation made up of the world's bar associations could contribute to global stability and peace through the administration of justice.
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