By Mayank Chhaya-
The human rights situation in Afghanistan, especially for its girls and women, has become so bad that six countries have referred it to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Citing the referral from Chile, Costa Rica, Spain, France, Luxembourg, and Mexico received on November 28, ICC prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan said, “ The States Parties express their concern about the severe deterioration of the human rights situation in Afghanistan, especially for women and girls and request my Office to consider the crimes committed against women and girls after the Taliban takeover in 2021 within its ongoing investigation in the Situation in Afghanistan.”
“In receiving the referral, my Office confirms that it has been and continues to conduct an active investigation in the Situation in Afghanistan which already encompasses the alleged crimes described in this referral,” Khan said in an official statement.
The investigation into the human rights violations has been going on since 2017 but Afghanistan came under a sharper focus after the Taliban takeover in 2021.
The referral said, “United Nations experts have reported a severe worsening of the situation in the country, with a particular impact on the rights of women and girls. Already in September 2022, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan noted: “In no other country have women and girls so rapidly disappeared from all spheres of public life, nor are they as disadvantaged in every aspect of their lives”.”
Since that report, life for girls and women have only deteriorated as they have seen their existence not just utterly demeaned but practically negated altogether.
“After 2022, the situation has only deteriorated. If, in its September 2022 Report, the Special Rapporteur was concerned about the suspension of girls’ secondary education and mandatory hijab-wearing, at the time women were still allowed to attend tertiary education and to work in specific fields (although some areas were already banned, such as the possibility of women to work in the justice system). However, in February 2023, the Special Rapporteur noted that women and girls had been banned from accessing parks, gyms, and public baths, and their access to university education was suspended. Women were also reported to be barred from working for domestic and international NGOs,” the referral said.
Khan said, “I welcome the referring State Parties’ determination to draw attention to these crimes and the Office’s investigation. While I must emphasize the importance of confidentiality concerning the details of my Office’s investigations, I can report that very considerable progress has already been made in the investigation of allegations of gender persecution in the Situation in Afghanistan, and I am confident that I will soon be in a position to announce concrete results.”
It is not clear though what the ICC action could do to change the situation on the ground. There is no way it can enforce its verdict in a manner that would change the terrible plight of Afghan girls and women.
During her conversations with Indica News Mahbouba Seraj, the well-known Afghan women and children’s rights campaigner, has said the world generally and the United States have essentially forgotten Afghanistan.
Seraj said in a recent interview during a visit to the U.S. what is going on in Afghanistan is “absolutely beyond absurd.” “What absolutely surprises me is that the whole world is watching, thinking that it is perfectly fine. They all think it is an internal policy of my country, and it is absolutely fine,” she said.
In August this year, the Taliban issued a 114-page 35-article document that aims at what it calls the promotion of virtue and elimination of vice as per Islamic laws. The new restrictions focusing largely against women were approved by the Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada. One of the restrictions makes it illegal for a woman’s voice to be heard by male strangers in public. It also prohibits women’s faces from being seen at all in public.
“Imagine now my voice is haram,” Seraj said.
