KABUL: Human Rights Watch has called on member states of the United Nations Human Rights Council to take stronger measures to safeguard the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan and to ensure accountability for gender-based persecution. In a statement released Thursday, the organization urged countries to recognize gender apartheid as a “crime against humanity” and to support efforts by the International Criminal Court to prosecute those responsible for serious human rights violations in Afghanistan. The UN Human Rights Council is scheduled to hold a session today to review the human rights situation in Afghanistan. Human Rights Watch also encouraged governments to back initiatives to bring a case before the International Court of Justice over violations of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and to use the principle of universal jurisdiction to pursue criminal cases. The statement noted that a mechanism established by the Human Rights Council in October 2025 could serve as an important tool for accountability, urging countries to operationalize it swiftly and provide adequate resources. The organization further warned that a recently adopted Taliban criminal courts law deepens restrictions and discrimination. Under the law, only followers of the Hanafi school are officially recognized as Muslims, while other religious groups, including Shiites, are labeled as heretical. It added that the law imposes harsh penalties to silence dissent and defines domestic violence narrowly as “severe beating,” potentially denying many victims of other forms of abuse access to protection and justice.
