Human Rights Watch (HRW) called for an international court to investigate gender-based crimes committed by Taliban officials.
In its latest report, which was published today, Friday, September 8, Human Rights Watch said that Taliban officials in Afghanistan are committing crimes against humanity through sexual harassment against women and girls.
Elizabeth Evenson, director of international justice at Human Rights Watch, said: “The Taliban’s cruel and methodical denial of the basic rights of women and girls to remove them from public life has received global attention. Coordinated support by concerned governments is needed to bring the Taliban leaders responsible to justice.”
Human Rights Watch’s investigation into Afghanistan since 2021 shows that the crime against humanity of persecuting women and girls is imposed through various written or announced decrees that impose severe restrictions on freedom of movement, expression, and assembly.
The HRW also added that the Taliban, with the decrees and orders they issued, banned almost all jobs, banned secondary and higher education, and committed arbitrary arrests and violations of the right to freedom.
The report stated that the Taliban authorities must eliminate all forms of oppression and discrimination that deprive women and girls of their basic rights.
Afghanistan is one of the parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. In October 2022, the Court authorised the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to reopen his investigation into the situation in Afghanistan, which was first authorised in 2020.
Regarding the investigation of the International Criminal Court, Evenson stated that the continuation of this investigation in Afghanistan can provide the conditions for responding to the crime against humanity regarding sexual harassment.
Evenson called on governments to ensure that the court has the necessary resources and cooperation to enable its prosecutors to investigate this crime, along with other serious human rights violations.
