What justice for women in Afghanistan?

Do we have the bandwidth to stay focused on all the things happening on our volatile planet? Sadly, most of them are pretty worrying.

The war in Ukraine has entered its fifth year, the misery in Gaza continues, the United Nations has warned of “ethnic cleansing” in the West Bank and the vicious conflict in Sudan shows no sign of ending.

And yet there are more issues that need our attention, issues we may be in danger of neglecting. This week, Inside Geneva kicks off a month of podcasts focusing on women – their human rights, their fight for justice and accountability, and their importance to sustainable peace agreements.

In the first episode we talk about Afghanistan. It’s four and a half years since the Taliban regained power. I remember at the time, watching the utterly chaotic withdrawal of US and NATO troops, and talking to a colleague who suggested that the Taliban this time around might be different, particularly when it came to respecting women’s rights.

What has happened since? A steady, suffocating repression of women. Once past the age of 12, they cannot go to school. They cannot leave the house without a male chaperone. They are banned from most jobs, they cannot go to public parks or gyms, and beauty salons have been closed. They must wear burqas with full face coverings in public, and must not speak or sing loudly. Most recently, the Taliban issued a law allowing men to beat their wives and children, as long as they don’t break any bones.

The UN has described this as an attempt to “erase” women from public life. Some human rights experts go further, and call this “gender apartheid”, and a possible crime against humanity.

Warnings unheard

We were warned by Afghan women at the time that the Taliban had not changed. Those same women could be forgiven now for saying “we told you so.” “They did not hear Afghan women despite all the advocacy, despite all the activism,” says Afghan human rights defender Sahar Fetrat. “And now the people who are paying that cost day to day are Afghan women and girls.”

“This is the time for the international community, for other countries, especially the European Union, to step in,” says Fereshta Abbasi of Human Rights Watch. “To make sure that they are responding to the crisis in Afghanistan, and they are standing with women of Afghanistan and to do anything they can to protect their rights.”

Both Fereshta and Sahar join us on this week’s episode of the Inside Geneva podcast. Both now live in exile in the United Kingdom, both are tireless in their determination to get attention, and justice, for the women and girls of Afghanistan. Fereshta has come to Geneva for the UN Human Rights Council, where she will be calling again for more support.

Last October, there was a sign that support might be forthcoming. The council backed EU-led calls for an official fact-finding mission for Afghanistan, with a focus on the oppression of women.

It sounds bland and bureaucratic. But a fact-finding mission can a be a key route to accountability and justice. The UN created one for Myanmar, and took detailed, shocking evidence from hundreds of Rohingya Muslims who had been driven from their homes in Myanmar, forced into exile in Bangladesh.

Myanmar is now facing charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice. The country bringing the charges, the Gambia, has said that a key reason for launching the case was the evidence gathered by the UN investigators.

Deike Potzel, the EU ambassador to the UN in Geneva, also joins us on this week’s podcast. She sees the Myanmar case as very relevant to the fact-finding mission for Afghanistan. “It is a possibility also to show perpetrators you are not going unwatched,” she tells me. “The Myanmar case now shows, even if you think it’s been 20 years, it’s been 10 years or what have you, there is justice coming.”

Funding challenge

But there are possible challenges ahead for the new fact-finding mission. For a start, at time of writing, its members had not been appointed, the mission itself was not funded, and so no fact-finding had begun.

Given the current parlous state of UN finances, and in particular the cuts at the UN Human Rights Office, does this mission even have a future? “Not doing it, to me, is not an option really,” insists Potzel. The next steps require appointing a head to lead the mission – everyone hopes this will be a woman.

The funding will very likely have to come from Europe. Where once the United States was an enthusiastic champion of women’s rights, it is now busily erasing the words equality and diversity from any UN programmes it has anything to do with. And Washington has made it clear that Afghanistan will not benefit from the savagely reduced US humanitarian budget.

Potzel appears undaunted. Citing “frank conversations”, she says “I do not want to see a backpedalling on those rights that we have fought for for so long, that brave women before us have fought for. I think I’m trying to be very vocal about that.”

Sahar and Fereshta welcome these words as a vindication that someone at least recognises the determination of so many Afghan women to challenge their oppressors, and have agency in their future.

“I firmly believe that the future of Afghanistan will be shaped by its people” says Sahar. “In Afghanistan, the oppressors will not stay there forever. But it’s important that we understand what it takes, and that it takes a crack from within to end the oppression.”

And Fereshta shares some words she was sent by a young Afghan journalist, from a rural area, still trying to work, and trying to make her voice heard beyond Afghanistan’s borders.

“Justice may not come to our lives today, but if our stories are recorded, we have a chance to get justice tomorrow. That’s why this mission is needed. This will give us hope and strength to endure these difficult days, knowing that we will be able to hold some of these Taliban leaders accountable. That these crimes are not forgettable, and that our suffering is not erased.”

Women reading this are I hope by now asking what they individually can do to support courageous Afghan women and girls. Potzel has one very simple recommendation: don’t let this issue fall off the agenda, talk about it. “In Europe we have the wonderful opportunity to make our voices heard” she says. “So open your eyes and then do something.”

Listen to Inside Geneva for those inspiring interviews in full – and join us next time, on March 17, when we talk to Antonia Mulvey, the international lawyer supporting Rohingya women as they testify at the International Court of Justice.

Edited by Virginie Mangin/sb