Sima Samar: Global Condemnations Have Failed to Stop Taliban's Violations of Women's Rights

In an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, published on Wednesday (October 9), Samar emphasized that Afghan women are striving on their own to hold the Taliban accountable for "gender apartheid."

Referring to international laws, she said: "Racial apartheid has been considered a crime against humanity since 1973. If we replace the word 'race' with 'gender,' this is exactly what Afghan women and girls are facing."

Samar had also used the term "gender apartheid" in the 1990s to describe the "systematic oppression of the Taliban" against women and girls.

In the interview, she remarked that "after the fall of the first Taliban regime, the idea that we would once again witness the harassment, isolation, and systematic oppression of half of Afghanistan's population based on their gender seemed impossible."

Meanwhile, Maryam Safi, the founder of the Organization for Policy Research and Development Studies, mentioned that her organization has launched a project to document the impact of Taliban rule on Afghan women.

In a recent survey conducted by her organization, about 67% of Afghan women described the restrictions imposed by the Taliban as "planned oppression," and 60% agreed that the United Nations should use the term "gender apartheid" to describe the situation of women in Afghanistan.

Over the past three years, the Taliban has imposed severe restrictions on citizens, especially ethnic and religious minorities, as well as on women and girls. For several months, women's rights activists have been campaigning for the UN to officially recognize "gender apartheid" in Afghanistan.