The former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in an article published by the Guardian that the severity of oppression of women and girls in Afghanistan and the violation of their rights can only be reflected by the term “gender apartheid” and emphasized that it is time to define gender apartheid as a crime against humanity.
Girls and women in Afghanistan have persevered through two years of ever-intensifying repression since the Taliban took over in August 2021, risking their lives in the struggle for their right to employment and education, Brown said, as reported by the Guardian.
“But no one should be in any doubt that what Afghan girls are experiencing is not a temporary disruption. It is nothing less than “gender apartheid”, the chilling words used recently by the permanent representative of Afghanistan to the United Nations,” the report said.
Brave children in Afghanistan are currently attending underground classrooms while living in constant danger of being arrested, imprisoned, and tortured for disobeying the Taliban’s rights-violating decrees.
The UNHCR and the partnership Connected Learning in Crisis support a significant online education initiative in colleges.
Meanwhile, he said that individual Taliban members may be held accountable for gender discrimination under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), to which Afghanistan acceded in 2003.
The policy on the crime of gender persecution, issued by the ICC in December 2022, notes that “gender persecution severely deprives a person … of the fundamental right to be free from discrimination in connection with other fundamental rights deprivations, contrary to international law. For example, it may deprive a person of the right to … education,” the document reported.
He also suggests that individual states could take action through their own domestic legal systems to express their criticism of the Taliban’s repression, for instance, by imposing sanctions against specific Taliban members.
Meanwhile, he suggested we must ensure that education can get through to girls in Afghanistan through the online and radio courses the rest of the world offers. while saying that education Cannot Wait, Unicef and others should be given the resources to provide educational opportunities for Afghan girls inside and outside the country.
The greatest advocates of education for everyone are the millions of women who attended school and universities in the two decades before 2021.
