Gender-Based Persecution and LGBTQI+ Rights in the OTP’s Case Against Taliban Leaders – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

Gender-Based Persecution and LGBTQI+ Rights in the OTP’s Case Against Taliban Leaders – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

On 23 January 2025, the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) before the International Criminal Court (ICC) filed two arrest warrants before the Pre-Trial Chamber II (PTC II), one for the Supreme Leader of the Taliban, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and the other for the Chief Justice of the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”, Abdul Hakim Haqqani. The OTP … Read more

Challenging Gender Persecution in Afghanistan at the ICJ – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

Gender-Based Persecution and LGBTQI+ Rights in the OTP’s Case Against Taliban Leaders – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

Introduction

In a groundbreaking move, Australia, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands have announced their intention to take Afghanistan to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over gender discrimination, following the Taliban’s brutal repression of women and girls. This would be the first time the ICJ has been used by a state to challenge another under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women for gender discrimination. Since the Taliban seized control in August 2021, Afghan women and girls have faced what many activists, scholars, and policymakers are calling gender apartheid—a regime of systematic oppression that affects virtually every aspect of their lives.

The Taliban’s decrees have barred women from education beyond the sixth grade, mandated that they travel only with a mahram (male guardian), and imposed punishments for women who raise their voices in public. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, these measures, coupled with increased surveillance by morality inspectors and restrictions on the media, represent “gender persecution, a crime against humanity,” that is reshaping Afghan society. The Taliban’s new vice and virtue laws, implemented in 2023, further entrench this system, with new rules that forbid women from leaving their homes unless fully covered and from engaging in public activities such as singing or raising their voices.

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