Statement by Nobel Women's Initiative
The arbitrary detention of women and girls in Herat is the latest manifestation of the Taliban's institutionalized system of gender apartheid. Women human rights defenders, journalists, and civil society actors across Afghanistan continue to face intimidation, persecution, arbitrary detention, and grave risks simply for defending the rights and freedoms of women and girls.
Nobel Women's Initiative stands in solidarity with Afghan women and girls, condemns their arbitrary detention, and calls on the international community to reject the normalization of the Taliban's system of gender apartheid, pursue accountability for serious human rights violations, and take urgent action to protect the rights, dignity, freedom, and leadership of women and girls across Afghanistan.
To the women and girls of Afghanistan: Your resistance has never ceased. Despite relentless repression under the Taliban's system of gender apartheid, you continue to organize, defend your rights, your dignity, your communities, and your future. Your leadership continues to shape the global struggle for justice, equality, and freedom.
The arrests in Herat are not isolated incidents. They are part of a deliberate system designed to control women's bodies, silence their voices, and erase them from public life.
Since the Taliban regained power in 2021, it has systematically dismantled the rights and freedoms of women and girls through a sweeping network of discriminatory decrees, including bans on girls’ education, severe restrictions on women’s work, movement, and public presence, and exclusion from nearly every aspect of public life. This institutionalized system of oppression constitutes gender apartheid and represents one of the world's most extreme assaults on women's rights. It is enforced through coercion, surveillance, arbitrary detention, restrictions on women's movement, dress, education, work, and civic participation, as authorities continue to intensify their campaign to erase women from public life.
"Afghan women activists have not remained silent. They continue their struggles both inside and outside Afghanistan, but we see that the Taliban suppress women even more ruthlessly."— Dr. Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Laureate
The recent detentions reflect a broader campaign to silence women, dismantle independent civil society, and punish those who defend fundamental rights. Afghan women and girls continue to be criminalized simply for participating in public life.
“The women of Afghanistan must not be forgotten. Supporting human rights in Afghanistan means protecting the dignity, rights, and future of all Afghans. Human rights only have their full meaning when they are defended for everyone, especially those who are most vulnerable.” — Safia Karimi, Afghan American humanitarian and scholar
Women and communities in Herat continue to reject forced dress requirements and the violence used to enforce them. These measures are tools of control intended to strip women of autonomy, dignity, and public participation. They violate fundamental human rights and form part of the Taliban's broader system of gender apartheid.
The international community must not normalize the Taliban's persecution of women. States and international institutions have a responsibility to oppose all forms of apartheid, including gender apartheid.
Recent engagement with Taliban officials in Europe, including discussions linked to refugee returns, risks conferring political legitimacy on the very authorities responsible for the systematic oppression of women and girls. Such engagement also undermines the European Union's commitments to human rights, gender equality, feminist foreign policy, and the Women, Peace and Security agenda.
Engagement that seeks to protect human rights, secure humanitarian access, or press for compliance with international law is distinct from political normalization. Any engagement with the Taliban must be strictly conditioned on clear, measurable, and enforceable human rights benchmarks and must never legitimize or enable the Taliban's system of gender apartheid.
Nobel Women's Initiative calls on the international community to use all available diplomatic, political, legal, and multilateral tools to press the Taliban to:
- Immediately and unconditionally release all women and girls arbitrarily detained across Afghanistan, and end arbitrary arrests, harassment, intimidation, violence, and the coercive enforcement of dress restrictions.
- Dismantle the system of laws, decrees, policies, and practices that constitute gender apartheid, including restrictions on women's rights, freedom of movement, education, work, bodily autonomy, and participation in public life.
- Protect women and girls, women human rights defenders, journalists, and civil society actors from retaliation, violence, intimidation, and further abuse, and ensure accountability for those responsible for violations of international human rights law.
- Respect, protect, and fulfil the human rights of women and girls, including by allowing safe, independent, and confidential documentation of human rights violations and guaranteeing their rights to education, work, freedom of movement, bodily autonomy, and full participation in public life.
Governments and international institutions must also:
- Ensure that any engagement with the Taliban is strictly conditioned on clear, measurable, and enforceable human rights benchmarks and does not confer political legitimacy on, normalize, or enable the Taliban's system of gender apartheid.
- Pursue coordinated diplomatic, political, legal, and targeted sanctions or other accountability measures against individuals and entities responsible for gender persecution, gender apartheid, and other serious human rights violations, consistent with international law.
- Uphold rights-based migration and asylum policies, including the principle of non-refoulement, and reject refugee returns or migration cooperation that contributes to the normalization of the Taliban.
- Ensure the meaningful, safe, and sustained participation and leadership of Afghan women, women human rights defenders, and civil society actors in all international discussions and decisions concerning Afghanistan.
As long as Afghan women and girls live under gender apartheid, there can be no normalization of relations with the Taliban. Governments must match their commitments to human rights, gender equality, and feminist foreign policy with decisive action to end gender apartheid, protect women human rights defenders and civil society actors, and support the women leading the struggle for justice, equality, freedom, and accountability.