‘Nowhere else in the world has there been an attack as widespread, systematic and all- encompassing on the rights of women and girls as in Afghanistan’.– The United Nations.
Introduction: Taliban Laws on Vice and Virtue
On 15th August 2021, the Taliban completed a successful resurgence of de facto authority in Afghanistan, thereby filling the power lacuna which had formed due to Western military withdrawal. This has proved ruinous for hitherto burgeoning Afghan human rights.
This is a direct ramification of the Taliban’s zealous realignment of Afghan society with their malignant ideology. Tasked with implementation of this objective is the formally restabilised “Ministry for the ‘Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice’. Previously described as a “notorious symbol of arbitrary abuses”, the various prejudicial implications emanating from its reestablishment are both salient and unsurprising.
These prejudicial implications current apotheosis is observable on 21st August 2024, whereby the Taliban promulgated their Laws on ‘Vice and Virtue’, following countenance from supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada. These ‘laws’, as published by the “Ministry for the ‘Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice’” are purportedly outlined in a 114-page document.
This document represents a furtherance and aggregation of previous regulations aimed at restricting the rights of Afghan individuals. This encompasses regulation of facets of life such as: Public transportation, sports, music, shaving and celebration. Furthermore, the document bestows the Ministry with the administration of punishment for transgressions of the ‘Vice and Virtue’ regulations.
Resultingly by codification into ‘law’, this document deepens violations of Afghan human rights; whilst moreover mandating increased de facto power to the Taliban in ensuring the enforcement of violations.
Women Right’s Violations
Notwithstanding the document’s deleterious impact on human rights in wider Afghan society, the ramifications for already tenuous woman rights in Afghanistan are particularly abhorrent.
As much is forwarded by Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, who opines: “The Taliban have made life for Afghan women and girls intolerable. They have erased them from all spheres of life and systematically stripped away their rights and dignity”.
These implications are predominantly consequent of Article 13 of the document, which stipulates that:
- Women always veil their body in public and that a face covering is essential to avoid temptation, of oneself and others.
- Clothing should never be thin, tight or short.
The documents injurious effects are further exacerbated by consequence of stipulations that:
- Women should veil themselves in front of male strangers.
- Woman’s voices are ‘intimate’, thereby it should not be heard singing, reciting, or reading aloud in public.
- Women should not look at a man which they are not related to by blood or marriage.
These new regulations highlight the Taliban’s inimical disregard for international human rights obligations pertaining to women. Through codifying these violations, the Taliban are openly disregarding the ‘Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women’. This treaty sought to ensure Internationally that women maintain minimum human rights, including:
- Freedom of movement
- Freedom of expression
- Right to peaceful assembly
- Rights to employment, political participation, health care, and education
The Taliban are obligated to this treaty, by virtue of the former ‘State of Afghanistan’ ratifying it. This is clarified by the International Law Commission, which notes that a ‘de facto government…is itself an apparatus of the state’ and its ‘conduct’ is imputable to the state (Article 4; Comment 4 to Article 9).
Consequently, the codification of ‘Vice and Virtue’ regulations puts onto a de facto domestic legal footing the Taliban’s insouciance for international human rights standards. However, this is paradigmatic of the Taliban, with previous women right’s violations already being a hallmark of their governance.
Previous Women Right’s Violations
Women right’s violations in Afghanistan are not novel. Since the 1990’s, whilst holding de facto authority, the Taliban have been steadfast in restricting the rights of women. Regarding the recent ‘vice and virtue’ legislation, it represents a furtherance of a multiplicity of decrees aimed at regressing women’s rights, including:
- Previous dress-code
- Segregated employment
- Disparities in educational rights
- The necessity of a male guardian when travelling
These previous regulations have resulted in injurious implications for women. A U.N report has shown in the aftermath of the employment decree, hundreds of Afghani women were denied access to work. Further, the same report also notes the breakdown of legal framework for women seeking to issue complaints of gender-based violence. Whilst also noting the arbitrary arrests of women for dress-code violations.
In response, supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada asserts that: “Necessary steps have been taken for the betterment of women as half of society in order to provide them with a comfortable and prosperous life according to the Islamic Shariah.”
Despite the mendacious reassurances, the violations appear indicative of the Taliban’s objective of a regression of women rights to pre-2002 levels. The U.N Commissioners Office has reaffirmed as much, noting the Taliban’s ambition of exhausting ‘the rights to education, to work, to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, freedom of movement and freedom from fear and want and from discrimination’.
With this borne in mind, the codification of the ‘Vice and Virtue’ document is demonstrative of Taliban’s ambitions of further regressions of women rights. Thus, if left unfettered the document risks constituting one component in a wholescale persecution of women in Afghanistan.
Attempts to Alleviate Violations?
With the above mentioned at stake, attempts must be made to alleviate the violations. However, with the tacit unavailability of domestic remedy for the Afghan women, the onus resultingly falls on the West to ensure the alleviation of women right’s violations. By means of international political and legal mechanisms, the following three approaches may prove effective in alleviating the women rights violations:
CEDAW: International Court of Justice (ICJ)
A dynamic approach to alleviation may be recognized via the International Court of Justice’s jurisdiction to adjudicate disagreements regarding the ‘Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women’.
This approach is contingent on intricate elements of international law being satisfied. Foremost of these elements is Article 29(1) which stipulates that the courts powers of adjudication are dependent on another state bringing the ‘contentious case’ before the court. The upshot of the intricacies of this approach is that satisfying them is often onerous.
That considered, under Article 41 of the ICJ Statute, the court possesses powers to ‘order provisional measures—obligatory temporary protective or injunctive relief—to safeguard their rights pending a final decision’. This highlights how an ICJ ruling route represents a potentially tangible means of alleviation.
Moreover, an ICJ decision has the potential to expose women rights violations to assiduous examination. This is significant as the Taliban continue to ensure that the full extent of their violations remain out of reach from the eye of the media.
Furthermore, this approach’s likelihood of success has been bolstered due to Australia, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands announcing their intention to exercise this legal route at the U.N General Assembly, on 25th September 2024.
United Nations (U.N) Oversight
A disparate approach which may be effective in alleviation is by means of U.N. oversight. Regarding women rights violations in Afghanistan, the U.N has been previously outspoken in ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan.’
This report concluded between June 2023 and March 2024, the Taliban issued over 52 new decrees that impose further restrictions on the rights of women and girls, effectively consolidating an institutionalized system of female persecution. This has contributed ‘to a climate of fear and intimidation among segments of the population’ in Afghanistan.
Albeit this report giving a beneficial insight into the violations, the Humans Rights Watch has called on additional action by the U.N. They have formally written to the U.N. ahead of the 57th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council. It called on the Council to:
- Renew and strengthen with the necessary resources, the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan.
- Establish a parallel and complementary independent mechanism to investigate, collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence of human rights violations and abuses and crimes under international law.
- Ensure continuation of a dedicated space for enhanced interactive dialogue on the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan with meaningful follow-up of the report of the Special Rapporteur on the Taliban ‘s repression against women and girls.”
Resultingly, the Council concluded that a multitude of steps may be taken by the U.N. Notably, the Council at 109.6 agreed to:
‘Uphold the human rights obligations stemming from the international treaties to which Afghanistan is a State party, including the rights to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, to peaceful assembly and to education, and ensure that any law review complies with such obligation’.
This appears to support the ICJ ruling approach aforementioned above. However, ultimately, alleviation by the U.N. would be merely investigative in nature. Therefore, it follows that the U.N. still has some way to go in being an effective alleviator of women rights violations in Afghanistan.
Economic Sanction
A final, expedient approach which may be taken to alleviate women rights violations is by extorting Afghanistan’s futile economic situation. This approach would endeavour to use Afghanistan’s diminishing economy, which has seen a ‘cumulative 27% shrinkage since 2020’, as means for ensuring women rights are respected. This would be achieved by threatening to impose economic sanctions, thus extorting the Taliban into guaranteeing women’s rights.
However, an important limiting factor to note is that this approach risks the augmentation of the current humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, if economic sanction is implemented. This makes this approach potentially untenable, despite its ostensible likelihood of success, as it may result in greater overall civilian suffering in Afghanistan.
Conclusion
The promulgation of the Laws on ‘Vice and Virtue’ suggests an ominous future for women human rights in Afghanistan. The Taliban’s disregard for international human rights standards relating to woman has become obtrusive since their reassumption of authority in 2021.
Consequently, the ‘Vice and Virtue’ document risks becoming one component in a continuum of women human right’s violations in Afghanistan.
In combatting this, Western states and supranational organizations must mobilize their international political and legal instruments, to alleviate the violations. However, at present Western attempts at alleviation have been impotent. Resultingly the prospect of haltering the Taliban’s current women rights violations appear inauspicious.
If this persists, the Taliban may prove triumphant in manifesting their Sharia-law idealisms on women. If so, this would represent a dystopian state of existence for women residing in Afghanistan.