Our Gender Apartheid Brief tracks accountability pathways, state action and legal strategies for Afghan women and girls. You can subscribe to receive future issues on LinkedIn.
Malala Fund’s first Gender Apartheid Brief outlined the accountability ecosystem for Afghan women and girls — mapping the legal, policy and normative pathways shaping efforts toward justice. It showed how distinct, Afghan-led strategies across tribunals, investigative bodies, international courts and treaty processes reinforce one another and contribute to the long-term effort to codify gender apartheid as a crime against humanity under international law.
This second brief tracks how that ecosystem is advancing. Accountability is cumulative, evolving and sustained over time. As legal processes move forward and political engagement deepens, codification is no longer only a conceptual goal. It is becoming a site of active legal and diplomatic positioning.
What this brief covers:
⚖️ Developments on the Crimes Against Humanity treaty process
📚 Legal and policy framing shaping codification of gender apartheid
💻 State engagement and positioning on gender apartheid
How to use this brief: Amplify our movement for justice
This brief tracks a movement shaped by sustained civil society leadership, legal strategy and collective effort. As accountability pathways advance, continued engagement matters.
Use this brief to understand which developments are generating:
Global momentum — where political and diplomatic attention is consolidating
Legal framing — how gender apartheid is being defined and interpreted
State pressure — where positions are shifting toward legal recognition and action
Accountability is not built in isolation. It grows through connection, persistence and sustained engagement over time.
Where we stand this quarter
Since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, women and girls have faced an institutionalised system of exclusion, punishment, control and domination across public and private life. This quarter, that system deepened further through the introduction of a new penal code that expands restrictions and formalises repression.
At the same time, efforts to advance accountability are becoming more visible and coordinated. This moment is defined by two parallel dynamics:
Entrenchment of repression within Afghanistan
Growing legal and political momentum internationally toward recognising and codifying gender apartheid
Crimes Against Humanity treaty: A pivotal moment
Earlier this year, the U.N. Sixth Committee convened in New York for a preparatory session on the draft Crimes Against Humanity (CAH) treaty. This process will shape whether and how emerging crimes — including gender apartheid — are reflected in international law. States used this session to outline positions and begin shaping the structure of the treaty. As the process moves toward formal drafting proposals, state engagement is becoming more consequential.
This moment matters because it marks a shift from principle to practice. States are no longer only expressing concern — they are beginning to signal whether they will support, refine or resist the legal recognition of gender apartheid. As proposals are submitted, a clearer picture is emerging of which states are:
advancing progressive legal interpretations
remaining cautious or ambiguous
resisting expansion of the legal framework
You can review member states’ statements and positions as they move toward submitting proposal language.
What's next for the CAH treaty
The Crimes Against Humanity treaty process is entering a critical phase:
April 30, 2026 — First opportunity for states to submit technical drafting proposals
April 2027 — Adoption of methods of work and rules of procedure
2028 onward — Continued negotiations and amendment processes
2029–2030 — Treaty conference and potential adoption phase
The April 30 deadline is a key inflection point. It will provide the first concrete indication of whether states are willing to translate support for gender apartheid into legal language within the treaty.
Legal & policy framing shaping codification
On global stages and media platforms, Afghan women are shaping the debate on codification of gender apartheid. And by sharing their perspectives and lived experiences, advocates and legal experts from Kosovo to South Africa are helping further the case for legal recognition — reflecting the importance of global solidarity in this movement.
1. Centring survivors in codification
In “Centering Survivors", Metra Mehran and Venesa Sulimani argue that the legitimacy and effectiveness of international law depends on whether it reflects the lived realities of those most affected.
Their argument underscores a critical dimension of the codification process: legal recognition must be shaped by those who experience the system it seeks to define.
As gender apartheid is debated within formal legal spaces, Afghan women and other survivor-led advocates continue to:
document violations
shape legal arguments
challenge exclusion from decision-making processes
This work ensures that codification is not only legally precise, but grounded in lived experience.
2. From observation to urgency
In "Listening to the U.N. debate in New York while gender apartheid deepens in Afghanistan”, Gaisu Yari reflects on the disconnect between deliberation in international forums and the accelerating reality on the ground.
This tension highlights a central challenge: the pace of legal and diplomatic processes continues to lag behind the scale and urgency of the crisis.
Bridging that gap — between recognition and action — remains one of the defining tasks of this moment.
3. Legal framing: Naming the system
In her recent opinion piece, Navi Pillay argues that the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls constitutes a system of institutionalised and legally enforced domination that mirrors apartheid in both structure and intent. Her intervention is significant because it strengthens the legal case for codification:
It frames the Taliban’s actions as a system, not a series of violations
It situates gender apartheid within established legal reasoning on apartheid
It reinforces the need for international law to evolve to capture this form of domination
This kind of legal framing is essential to codification: it shapes how states interpret the issue and whether they are prepared to recognise it formally under international law.
Spain’s leadership on gender apartheid
Our co-founder, Malala Yousafzai, and our Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy, Sahar Halaimzai, traveled to Spain to meet with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
During the visit, Malala highlighted Afghan girls’ strength in learning after 2021, and the efforts of Afghan partners who are leading the work to restore the full rights of Afghan women and girls inside Afghanistan and globally.
She also called on Spain to prioritise and strengthen accountability measures for women and girls in Afghanistan, including recognition of gender apartheid under international law.
CSW70: Malala and Sunbul Reha urge member states to advance gender justice and accountability
At the 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70), Malala addressed the U.N., calling on global leaders to reject selective justice and stand in solidarity with women and girls everywhere — from Gaza to Iran to Afghanistan. She emphasised that justice cannot be applied unevenly, warning selective application of international law undermines its credibility. Highlighting the Taliban’s systematic erasure of women and girls, she urged the international community to recognise gender apartheid and move from sympathy to accountability through legal action.
Afghan student and musician Sunbul Reha also called on member states to protect girls’ right to education, defend women’s rights and prevent further backsliding on human rights in Afghanistan.
Partner spotlight: End Gender Apartheid’s states tracker
Explore member states’ positions on gender apartheid through the End Gender Apartheid campaign’s updated tracker.
The End Gender Apartheid Campaign is a global grassroots campaign led by Afghan and Iranian women’s rights defenders, jurists and experts united in a call to end gender apartheid. Through the recognition of gender apartheid, the Campaign seeks to expand the political and legal tools available to mobilise international action and dismantle gender apartheid regimes.
Subscribe + amplify the movement for justice
Subscribe to the Gender Apartheid Brief for regular updates on accountability mechanisms, state action and efforts to codify gender apartheid under international law.
We also welcome contributions, ideas and updates from partners and allies. Please contact me at gaisu@malalafund.org.
Beyond following this work, we encourage readers to engage directly with the organisations and initiatives featured throughout this brief, whose work sustains accountability efforts in practice.
In solidarity,
Gaisu Yari, Policy & Advocacy Manager, Afghanistan Initiative