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International Experts Declaration on Gender Apartheid Will Be Launched to Mark Fifth Anniversary of Taliban Takeover

Language: English

Aug. 5, 2026

Human rights advocates today announce the August 13 launch of the International Declaration on Gender Apartheid and Its Destructive Consequences. This experts’ Declaration aims in particular to support the ongoing struggles of Afghan women and girls against systematic oppression by the Taliban which has steadily worsened since their return to power August 15, 2021.

The Declaration has been signed by more than 50 of the world's foremost experts in the fields of international law and women’s human rights, including prominent Afghan and South African advocates, as well as Nobel laureates, former United Nations officials and experts, and former judges from some of the world’s leading national and international courts. An online launch event on August 13 (12:00PM - 1:30 PM ET) will be free and open to the public (registration link below). The Declaration is available in English, Farsi, Pashto, and French on its dedicated website: www.genderapartheiddeclaration.org (opens in new tab).

The result of an extensive 18-month process of wide-ranging global consultations led by international lawyers and Afghan women’s rights advocates working in partnership—including an in-person convening at the University of Michigan Law School in September 2025—the Declaration calls for an end to gender apartheid in Afghanistan, as well as “the comprehensive use and development of international law” to bring this about, including codification of the prohibition of gender apartheid in the forthcoming Crimes against Humanity Convention, and progressive interpretation of current international law to meet this grave challenge to women’s rights.

Afghan society as a whole has suffered under Taliban rule, with citizens facing simultaneous political, security, economic, human rights and humanitarian crises. However, the August 15th anniversary of the Taliban takeover is felt most deeply by Afghan women and girls who endure egregious human rights violations and threats to their human dignity every day, and continue their resistance, while the world looks away. Recently, dozens of women were arrested in the city of Herat over so-called dress code violations, while resulting protests were met with brutality. The Taliban’s enshrined system of gender-based discrimination bars girls from attending school past the sixth grade, bans books by women, and keeps women out of the public sphere and most employment. Through surveillance, outright violence, and so-called law, Afghan women are being erased from society.

The Declaration is a critical step to support the advocacy of women on the frontlines of both deep-rooted and emerging systems of oppression, in Afghanistan and beyond, while safeguarding women’s rights for future generations at a time of global backlash. While some international actors seek to normalize the Taliban, the Declaration denounces complicity with perpetrators of gender apartheid and demands accountability for those perpetrators as well as remedies for their victims.

The launch event will take place virtually from 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM ET on Thursday August 13th and will feature Afghan, South African, and other international speakers. It is hosted by the University of Michigan Law School and co-sponsored by the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies, the Women and Children Research and Advocacy Network (WCRAN), the Network on the Elimination of Gender Apartheid (NEGA), the Network of Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), the University of Southern California Gould School of Law Gilbert Global Justice & Human Rights Center, and the Women in International Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law. Register here (opens in new tab).

Featured speakers include:

  • Chair: Zubaida Akbar, leading women's rights and civil society activist from Afghanistan;
  • Ambassador Manizha Bakhtari, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to Vienna and International Organizations and former Chief of Staff of Afghanistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
  • Zarqa Yaftali, Founder and Executive Director of the Women and Children Research and Advocacy Network;
  • Dr. Davood Moradian, Director General of the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies;
  • Professor Hannah Garry, Clinical Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Gilbert Global Justice & Human Rights Center at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law; and
  • Professor Karima Bennoune, Lewis M. Simes Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School and former United Nations Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights (2015–2021).

The event will also feature a video address from Professor Penelope Andrews, John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law and Director of the Racial Justice Project at New York Law School and former Dean of the University of Cape Town Faculty of Law.

Contact:
Karima Bennoune
Lewis M. Simes Professor of Law
University of Michigan Law School
karimab@umich.edu