Gender Apartheid' in Afghanistan: Reviving the Relic of Anti-Apartheid International Laws to Address Systematic Gender Discrimination Under the Taliban.

Abstract

Last year, the executive director of UN Women stated the existing international legal framework on gender discrimination is insufficient to address the dire situation presently developing in Afghanistan. She called for the international community to recognise systematic discrimination perpetuated by Taliban as ‘gender apartheid.’ Her plea resonates with what UN experts, human rights activists and international lawyers have been suggesting since the insipience of Taliban in Afghanistan decades ago. This paper critically examines how the legal framework developed out of racial apartheid can be applicable on ‘gender apartheid’ in Afghanistan. Additionally, it surveys the implications of an international recognition of gender apartheid given the historical, political, and cultural specificity of Afghanistan. To delineate how the United Nations mobilised international law to confront apartheid, the paper conducts a black-letter law reading of relevant norms. A broader sociolegal method coupled with a comparative method is deployed to guide the analysis of racial apartheid vis-á-vis gender apartheid. The research findings indicate women’s most fundamental rights have been curtailed by Taliban while international engagement with the interim government in Kabul has varied from disengagement to pragmatic resumption of relations. These results suggest there are legitimate moral objectives to push for recognition of gender apartheid, but recognition is ultimately contingent upon the political will of the international community.