Today’s judgment by the People’s Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan is a historic and decisive affirmation of what Afghan women have been saying for more than four years: that the systematic erasure of women from public life under Taliban rule is not merely discrimination, but a crime under international law.
The Tribunal has ruled that the Taliban and the de facto authorities in Afghanistan are responsible for crimes against humanity, including gender persecution. This gives further moral and political weight to the lived reality of millions of Afghan women and girls who have been stripped of their rights to education, work, healthcare, freedom of movement, and public participation.
This Tribunal was created because Afghan women have been denied justice at every level. Today’s judgment makes clear that their suffering is not invisible, not forgotten, and not beyond the reach of international law. The world now has a formal legal record of what is happening in Afghanistan. There can now be no claim of uncertainty, ambiguity, or lack of evidence. What remains is the political will to act.
This Tribunal would not have been possible without the courage of the witnesses. We honor the extraordinary women who came forward to testify from inside Afghanistan and in exile, often at great personal risk. Their testimony, their stories, their words shaped this judgment. Their voices now form part of the international legal record and cannot be erased.
This judgment also delivers a clear message to the international community. Silence, inaction, delays, normalization, or engagement without conditionality are no longer defensible. Engagement that ignores women’s rights can now carry legal, political, and moral consequences.
Today, we, the undersigned organizations, demand that governments, international institutions, and the United Nations to act without delay to:
- Deliver a direct, clear, united and powerful message to the Taliban that their repressive policies are unacceptable and must be reversed. Initiate criminal investigations and prosecutions under international and universal jurisdiction.
- Expand protection and asylum pathways for Afghan women at risk.
- End all political processes that exclude women and normalize systemic gender-based repression
- Support all tools for accountability including the new investigative mechanism for Afghanistan and the efforts to codify gender apartheid
This Tribunal was never only about the past. It is about the future. It is about whether the world will accept a system in which women are erased, by law.
This Tribunal goes beyond documenting violations. It is the result of survivors choosing to speak, to name the harms they have endured, and to challenge the structures that attempt to silence them..
Afghan women have spoken. The judges have spoken. The law has spoken. Now the world must respond.
Sincerely,
RAWADARI
Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization
Human Rights Defenders Plus
Organization for Policy Research and Development Studies
