Thread by @heatherbarr1

Today marks the release of an important new report on Afghanistan by @SR_Afghanistan and the @UN working group on discrimination against women and girls. You can--and should--read the full report here: ohchr.org/en/documents/c…

@SR_Afghanistan @UN This is an important acknowledgement of how shutting women out of key discussions about Afghanistan's future, in violation of commitments made under UN Security Council resolution 1325, helped create this hell for women and girls:

"Afghanistan is afflicted by poverty & food insecurity, with more than 2/3 of its people in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. Sustained restrictive policies on women’s education & work...will further harm the economy & people’s survival, w/particular impact on women."

"Upon assuming power, [Taliban] suspended the 2004 Constitution & all domestic legislation, notably the Law on the Elimination of VAW, & abolished institutions & mechanisms that promoted gender equality & provided protection against GBV, such as the AIHRC & MoWA."

"One of the most illustrative examples of the systematic discrimination against women/girls in Afghanistan today is the relentless issuance of edicts, decrees, declarations & directives restricting their rights, including their freedom of movement, attire & behaviour..."

"...and their access to education, work, health and justice. Between September 2021 and May 2023, more than 50 [such] edicts were issued...The edicts are believed to be primarily issued by Amir-ul-Momineen to relevant administrative entities, who then issue them to the public."

Taliban "tasked AGO & the Min for Virtue & Vice to monitor implementation. The Dir of Intelligence operates as enforcer: arresting, detaining, interrogating & in some cases reportedly torturing individuals suspected of contravening edicts, such as education advocates/protesters."

"The edicts often lack specifics, such as definitions or details about implementation & punishment, leading to a climate of legal uncertainty & fear, in which people self-censor to avoid punishment by individual Taliban w/their own understanding of the restrictions/punishments."

Women's rights protests "have often been met with excessive use of force, intimidation, arrest, arbitrary detention (on occasion possibly amounting to enforced disappearance) and ill-treatment. In Sept 2021, the Taliban issued an edict banning unapproved demonstrations."

"The experts have rec'd numerous credible reports of Taliban officers brutally beating, arbitrarily arresting & detaining women protesters, many of whom have been later released upon guarantees to cease their activism & remain silent about their treatment, as well as payments."

"Victims report having been subjected to gender-based violence, including sexual violence, often amounting to torture, by Taliban officers seeking information about demonstration organizers."

"Men making public statements in support of women’s rights have also been arrested, detained & ill-treated. Matiullah Wesa, the founder of a local NGO that champions education rights, especially for girls, was arrested on 27 Mar 2023 and remains detained on unspecified charges."

"Despite ongoing threats, intimidation and fear of arrest, torture and detention, women continue to be the primary advocates for their rights, demonstrating in adaptive, creative and courageous ways."

"At the intl level, while Afghan women have been able periodically to address @UN_HRC & Security Council, they have been excluded from important intl meetings deliberating on the situation in Afghanistan. This runs contrary to the WPS framework, art 8 of CEDAW, and gen rec 30."

@UN_HRC "The experts are deeply concerned that gender persecution is occurring in Afghanistan under [Taliban]...Under art 7.2(g) of the Rome Statute, “persecution” is the intentional & severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to intl law by reason of the identity of the group."

@UN_HRC "Gender persecution constitutes a crime against humanity under article 7.1 (h) of the Rome Statute."

"Gender persecution can also be deemed as grounds for women to apply for or to be granted refugee status by host States under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the Protocol thereto and applicable regional and national legislation."

Buckle up--this is the most important bit.

This is the most detailed--and supportive--response yet by @UN actors to the claim, increasingly made by Afghan women's rights defenders, that the Taliban's actions constitute acts of #GenderApartheid and demand consequent actions.

@UN Naming the Taliban's abuses as apartheid, the experts say, "highlights that other States and actors and the international community at large, have a duty to take effective action to end the practice, as was done to end racial apartheid in southern Africa."

@UN "While the backlash against women’s and girls’ rights has unfolded in different countries and regions in recent years, nowhere else in the world has there been an attack as widespread, systematic and all-encompassing on the rights of women and girls as in Afghanistan."

@UN "The pattern of large-scale systematic violations of women’s/girls’ fundamental rights in Afghanistan, abetted by the Taliban’s discriminatory/misogynistic policies & harsh enforcement methods, constitutes gender persecution & an institutionalized framework of gender apartheid."

@UN And what about action? States shd "Mandate a report on gender apartheid as an institutionalised system of discrimination, segregation, humiliation & exclusion of women/girls, w/view to developing further normative standards & tools, galvanizing intl legal condemnation & action."

I know states "mandating a report" doesn't sound like much use when every day girls/women are being denied education, income, food, healthcare, political voice, everything. But this is an important opening for activists to try a new strategy. The Taliban should be worried.