Systematic Erosion of Rights of Women in Afghanistan: Analysis of Taliban’s Decrees within the Context of International Human Rights Law

1.1 Introduction

Since August 2021, the Taliban have issued over 470 decrees restructuring the socio-economic life of the Afghan people, of which at least 79 target women and girls.¹ These decrees have systematically stripped women and girls of their legal identity and blocked their access to education, employment, healthcare, justice, movement, and public life generally.

The importance of this development extends far beyond Afghanistan itself — it is a test of the international human rights system’s capacity to protect and promote human rights at all. Afghanistan remains bound by several core international human rights treaties, including CEDAW, the CRC, the ICCPR, and the ICESCR, yet the Taliban have dismantled nearly every legal safeguard available to Afghan women and girls.²

Before August 2021, the legal age of marriage in Afghanistan for girls was 16, and marriages of girls under 15 were prohibited under the Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW) Act. The country also had family courts, dedicated units within the Attorney General’s Office and Ministry of Interior, and a high-level commission addressing violence against women, child marriage, and family separation. These protections were not applied consistently, but they still gave women and girls some access to legal recourse. All of these laws and structures have since been dismantled.³

According to the UN Special Rapporteur, the present situation amounts to “an institutionalized system of gender discrimination,” and many international organizations describe the Taliban’s approach as an effort to remove women from public life entirely.⁴ These developments raise serious questions about international law’s capacity to respond to a legal system built on discrimination.⁵

1.2 Research Question

This article addresses the following research question: How do the Taliban’s decrees infringing on the human rights of Afghan women and girls amount to systematic violations of international human rights law, and can these violations rise to the level of crimes against humanity — particularly the emerging category of “gender apartheid”?

1.3 Thesis Statement

The Taliban’s legal decrees since 2021 — especially the May 2026 Code on Judicial Separation of Spouses and the 2026 Criminal Procedure Code — have systematically dismantled the Afghan legal system in an effort to entrench gender-based persecution. These actions violate binding international treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The systematic and institutionalized nature of these violations further justifies describing Taliban rule as a form of “gender apartheid” — a crime against humanity that international criminal law has yet to formally codify.

2.1 Taliban Rule: The Origins of Gender-Based Inequality

The Taliban’s first period of rule in Afghanistan, from 1996 to 2001, was notorious for severe restrictions on women’s rights, barring them from education, work, and public life. While these measures were framed as establishing “pure” Islamic governance, Islamic legal scholars have consistently rejected this framing, arguing that women’s right to education and employment is supported by Islam and that Sharia contains no basis for the restrictions the Taliban imposed.⁶

2.2 Re-establishment in 2021 and Breakdown of the Legal Order

The fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in August 2021 was a disaster not only for the state but for women’s rights across the country. Hundreds of female public figures — politicians, army and police officers, lawyers, judges, activists, prosecutors, university lecturers, and teachers — were forced to flee Afghanistan or go into hiding to avoid reprisals. The formal justice system collapsed as a result, and in November 2022 the Taliban’s Supreme Leader mandated the application of Sharia law throughout Afghanistan.⁷

The withdrawal of U.S. forces and the subsequent collapse of the Afghan government followed a peace deal with the Taliban that excluded Afghan women from the negotiations entirely. Practitioners and academics who took part in the Doha peace talks warned that “the time is running out for the women and girls of Afghanistan and their voices are being lost to the winds of political and military disengagement” — a warning that has since proven accurate.⁸

2.3 Progressive Restrictions on Women

Since returning to power, the Taliban have steadily intensified restrictions on women through a growing body of decrees and directives. Haqpal describes this as “the systematic and institutionalized oppression of women, depriving them of basic rights to education, work and movement.”⁹ In the nearly four years since, the Taliban have issued what researchers characterize as “systematic and widespread discrimination against women through the issuance of more than one hundred edicts,” amounting to “a governance system based on gender hierarchy.”⁹ The U.S. Institute of Peace has documented at least 100 edicts targeting women in education, work, and freedom of movement.¹⁰

3. Key Taliban Decrees

The decrees below illustrate the breadth of restrictions imposed since 2021, spanning education, employment, movement, dress, marriage, and public participation.

3.1 Education Bans

Having already banned girls from secondary schools and universities, the Taliban in 2024 extended this prohibition to women studying medicine. This restriction not only denies women the right to education but threatens Afghanistan’s healthcare system directly, by cutting off the supply of female doctors needed to treat women in line with cultural and religious norms.¹¹

3.2 Employment Restrictions

The Taliban have barred women from working across most government structures, NGOs, UN agencies, and other sectors. This deprives women of independent economic activity, deepens poverty, and removes them from the labor market entirely — denying them internationally recognized rights to work and equality.¹²

3.3 Freedom of Movement

The Taliban have restricted women from traveling without a mahram (male guardian), among other similar measures. These restrictions cut women off from education, healthcare, employment, and legal protection alike.¹³

3.4 Dress Regulations

In 2024 and 2026, the Taliban imposed mandatory dress codes requiring women to cover their bodies and faces in public, with penalties for non-compliance. This strips women of autonomy and dignity and further discourages participation in public life by criminalizing personal choice.¹⁴

3.5 Marriage-Related Restrictions

On 8 May 2026, the Taliban adopted the Code on Judicial Separation of Spouses, under which a girl’s silence after puberty is treated as consent to marriage, male guardianship is reaffirmed, and women face significant new obstacles to obtaining a separation from a spouse. These provisions create serious risks of child and forced marriage and violate the principles of free and full consent, equality before the law, and children’s rights.¹⁵

3.6 Participation in Public Affairs

To strip women of their civil rights and freedoms, the Taliban have abolished organizations dedicated to protecting women’s rights and excluded women from political, judicial, and other institutions. As a result, women are shut out of public life entirely and cannot participate in legislative or other governmental processes on equal terms with men.

4. International Law

Despite the Taliban’s return to power, Afghanistan remains bound by its obligations under numerous international human rights treaties — meaning the restrictions described above constitute violations of international law.

4.1 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

Although the UDHR is not itself a binding treaty, it establishes fundamental human rights standards that are now widely recognized as principles of customary international law.¹⁶

4.2 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

The Taliban’s restrictions on women directly contradict CEDAW, discriminating against women in education, employment, public life, and marriage in violation of Articles 2, 10, 11, and 16. Rather than eliminating discrimination against women, the Taliban’s legal system institutionalizes it by legally subordinating women to men.¹⁷

4.3 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)

Taliban policy — particularly the 2026 Code on Judicial Separation of Spouses — contradicts the CRC by exposing girls to early marriage, denying them the opportunity to receive a proper education, and failing to protect them from exploitation and violence, in violation of Articles 1, 19, 34, and 36.¹⁸

4.4 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)

The Taliban’s restrictions violate the ICCPR by denying women equality before the law, limiting their freedom of movement and public participation, and undermining the requirement that marriage be entered into with free and full consent — in breach of Articles 2, 3, 12, and 23.¹⁹

4.5 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)

The Taliban’s decrees also breach the ICESCR by denying women equal rights to employment, education, medical care, and adequate living conditions, in violation of Articles 3, 6, 11, 12, and 13. The bans on women’s employment and medical education carry particularly serious long-term consequences for Afghanistan’s economic development and healthcare system.²⁰

5. Can These Acts Constitute Crimes Against Humanity?

5.1 Persecution Based on Gender

In July 2025, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Taliban Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani for crimes against humanity, including persecution on gender grounds — a breakthrough in international criminal law’s recognition of the Taliban’s gender-persecution policies.²¹

Under Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute, persecution is defined as the severe violation of fundamental rights on discriminatory grounds. By restricting women’s access to education, healthcare, and public life, and by curtailing their freedom of movement, the Taliban have gone beyond isolated human rights violations to establish an institutionalized policy of discrimination. As the UN Special Rapporteur has noted, this amounts to an institutionalized system of gender discrimination — further evidence that crimes against humanity have occurred.²²

5.2 Gender Apartheid: The Debate Around Recognition of a Crime Against Humanity

Many researchers argue that “persecution” is too narrow a concept to capture the full picture of the Taliban’s regime. Instead, they contend that Afghanistan has become a case of gender apartheid — a legal and political system that uses the power of law and state institutions to establish the domination of one gender over another.

Where persecution addresses individual discriminatory acts, apartheid criminalizes an entire system of institutionalized oppression. The Rome Statute currently recognizes apartheid only as a form of racial discrimination, leaving a doctrinal gap: there is no equivalent provision for gender apartheid. As a result, while international law can punish individual discriminatory acts, it currently lacks the mechanisms needed to address a legal system deliberately designed to subordinate women.

Rather than violating isolated rights, the Taliban have restructured Afghanistan’s entire legal system into one of institutionalized inequality, in which women hold fewer rights than men as a matter of law. The question this raises is not whether individual rights have been violated, but whether existing international legal instruments are adequate to address a system that institutionalizes gender oppression as a whole.²³

Researchers and human rights organizations — including the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute — have called for gender apartheid to be recognized as a crime against humanity, whether through reinterpretation of the Rome Statute or through formal amendment.²⁴

6. Challenges Facing the International Community

6.1 International Enforcement

Despite extensive documentation of the Taliban’s mistreatment of women and girls, enforcement remains the central challenge. The UN, UNAMA, and the Special Rapporteur have documented these violations extensively, but their ability to influence Taliban policy remains limited. International sanctions have had minimal effect, and the Taliban continues to reject international criticism of these practices as inconsistent with Islamic law.²⁵

6.2 International Criminal Accountability

The ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants for senior Taliban officials marks an important step for international criminal law. Nevertheless, accountability remains difficult to secure, since enforcement depends on state cooperation and Taliban leadership is unlikely to surrender voluntarily. International criminal law has acknowledged the gravity of these violations, but practical enforcement remains limited.²⁶

7. Recommendations

7.1 Recognize Gender Apartheid

The international community should recognize gender apartheid as a distinct crime under international law. Existing provisions on gender persecution address only individual crimes, not the institutional systems of gender oppression the Taliban have built — recognition would close this doctrinal gap.²⁷

7.2 Strengthening International Accountability

States and international bodies should support ongoing ICC investigations, expand mechanisms for gathering evidence, and pursue legal reforms that make it possible to prosecute systematic gender-based oppression.²⁸

7.3 Protection of Afghan Women and Girls

Protection should be extended to Afghan refugees, alongside continued support for cross-border and online education programs for women and sustained humanitarian aid that ensures access to healthcare, education, and justice. Ongoing international support remains essential to preserving basic rights until stronger accountability mechanisms are developed.²⁹

8. Conclusion

Under the post-2021 Taliban legal system, women and girls in Afghanistan live under an institutionalized regime of gender discrimination — one enforced through decrees that restrict access to education, work, healthcare, freedom of movement, and family life, in direct violation of Afghanistan’s international human rights obligations.

The ICC’s acceptance of gender persecution charges is a significant milestone, but current international criminal law still falls short of capturing the deliberate construction of an entire legal regime designed to subjugate women. The concept of gender apartheid offers a more accurate legal framework for what is happening in Afghanistan. Strengthening accountability mechanisms while pursuing formal recognition of gender apartheid within international law would not only protect the rights of Afghan women and girls, but also strengthen international law itself.

Note(S):

1. Amnesty International, Afghanistan: New Code Enabling Child Marriage Compounds Dismal Situation for Women’s and Girls’ Rights (2026).
2. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (adopted 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981) 1249 UNTS 13; Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted 20 November 1989, entered into force 2 September 1990) 1577 UNTS 3; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976) 993 UNTS 3.
3. Amnesty International (n 1).
4. Richard Bennett, Report on Women’s and Girls’ Right to Health in Afghanistan UN Doc A/HRC/61/63 (2026).
5. Bennett (n 4).
6. N Haqpal, ‘The Afghan Women’s Movement and Gender Apartheid: Shifting the Trajectory of International Human Rights Law’ (2025) Central Asian Survey.
7. Bennett (n 4).
8. Haqpal (n 6).
9. Haqpal (n 6).
10. United States Institute of Peace, The Taliban’s Restrictions on Women’s Rights in Afghanistan (2025).
11. United Nations News, Women and Girls Left Vulnerable to Abuse: UN Calls for Taliban’s New Marriage Decree to Be Reversed (2026).
12. Bennett (n 4).
13. Bennett (n 4).
14. Amnesty International (n 1).
15. Amnesty International (n 1).
16. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted 10 December 1948) UNGA Res 217 A (III).
17. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (n 2) arts 2, 10, 11, and 16.
18. Convention on the Rights of the Child (n 2) arts 1, 19, 34, and 36.
19. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (n 2) arts 2, 3, 12, and 23.
20. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (n 2) arts 3, 6, 11, 12, and 13.
21. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2002) 2187 UNTS 90; A Soltan, ‘From Persecution to Apartheid: The ICC’s Next Legal Frontier for Women’s Rights’ (2025) Opinio Juris.
22. Rome Statute (n 21) art 7(1)(h).
23. Haqpal (n 6).
24. International Bar Association Human Rights Institute, IBAHRI Highlights Gender Apartheid Regime in Afghanistan after Four Years under Taliban (2025).
25. United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Women in Afghanistan Nearly Four Times Less Likely Than Men to Have Access to Formal Justice Mechanisms (2026).
26. Rome Statute (n 21); Soltan (n 21).
27. International Bar Association Human Rights Institute (n 24).
28. Rome Statute (n 21).
29. Bennett (n 4).

Bibliography

Journal Articles

Haqpal N, ‘The Afghan Women’s Movement and Gender Apartheid: Shifting the Trajectory of International Human Rights Law’ (2025) Central Asian Survey.
Soltan A, ‘From Persecution to Apartheid: The ICC’s Next Legal Frontier for Women’s Rights’ (2025) Opinio Juris.

International Instruments

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (adopted 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981) 1249 UNTS 13.
Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted 20 November 1989, entered into force 2 September 1990) 1577 UNTS 3.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171.
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976) 993 UNTS 3.
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2002) 2187 UNTS 90.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted 10 December 1948) UNGA Res 217 A (III).

Reports

Amnesty International, Afghanistan: New Code Enabling Child Marriage Compounds Dismal Situation for Women’s and Girls’ Rights (2026).
Bennett R, Report on Women’s and Girls’ Right to Health in Afghanistan UN Doc A/HRC/61/63 (2026).
International Bar Association Human Rights Institute, IBAHRI Highlights Gender Apartheid Regime in Afghanistan after Four Years under Taliban (2025).
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Women in Afghanistan Nearly Four Times Less Likely Than Men to Have Access to Formal Justice Mechanisms (2026).
United Nations News, Women and Girls Left Vulnerable to Abuse: UN Calls for Taliban’s New Marriage Decree to Be Reversed (2026).
United States Institute of Peace, The Taliban’s Restrictions on Women’s Rights in Afghanistan (2025).