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 Gender Apartheid Brief outlines the accountability ecosystem for Afghan women and girls and the legal, policy and normative pathways within it. Each issue highlights how distinct pathways led by Afghan women — including tribunals, investigative bodies, international courts and treaty negotiations — reinforce one another and contribute to the long-term effort to recognise and codify gender apartheid as a crime against humanity under international law.
In this brief, we highlight key developments since our previous publication in July 2026.
What our fourth brief covers:
📰 Current developments in Afghanistan: The deepening system of gender apartheid and its impact on the rights and freedoms of Afghan women and girls.
🇿🇦 South Africa’s leadership: Standing in solidarity with the women and girls of Afghanistan and signalling support for codifying gender apartheid.
⚖️ ICC accountability update: The International Criminal Court (ICC)’s unsealing of arrest warrants for two additional Taliban leaders, the ministers of education and higher education, for alleged gender-based persecution.
🇺🇳 UNGA81 momentum: Building on political engagements at the U.N. General Assembly to keep Afghanistan on the agenda, centre Afghan women’s leadership and drive action on accountability and gender apartheid.
📃 Key reading: A new law journal article examining the gendered dimensions of apartheid in South Africa and Palestine.
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 track which pathways are generating
Global momentum - building solidarity around the world
Legal framing - interpretations that clarify what the system is and why it matters
State mobilization - signals that move beyond sympathy to legal action
Accountability is not built in isolation. It grows through connection, persistence and sustained engagement over time.
Where we stand
Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, they have subjected women and girls in Afghanistan to an institutionalised system of exclusion, punishment, control and domination that permeates both public and private life. Over the last several months, the Taliban further entrenched this system of gender apartheid.
According to the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), the Taliban arrested or detained at least 52 women and one girl in Herat and Kabul between July-September 2026, while others faced threats of arrest. These incidents reflect the continued targeting and repression of women and girls under the Taliban’s system of gender apartheid.
Since our last brief, the Afghanistan Justice Archive (AJA) documented 62 new Taliban decrees, orders and directives, reflecting the continued expansion of the regime’s restrictive governance framework. AJA have highlighted eight of the most severe or consequential measures on their website, providing further insight into the evolving system of institutionalised discrimination and repression in Afghanistan.
At the same time, international awareness and political momentum continued to grow. Below we highlight significant milestones achieved in South Africa and momentum built at the U.N. General Assembly. These developments created important opportunities to mobilise international support for the codification of gender apartheid, centre the voices and demands of Afghan women and girls and reinforce calls for principled international engagement that rejects the normalisation of relations with the Taliban.
South Africa’s leadership in standing with Afghan women and girls
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's speech in August 2026
In August 2026, Afghan women leaders joined Malala Yousafzai in South Africa for a landmark solidarity and advocacy visit, coinciding with the fifth anniversary of the Taliban’s return to power, as well as the 70th anniversary of South Africa’s historic 1956 Women’s March against apartheid. The visit marked a significant moment of solidarity, connecting the struggles of Afghan women today with South Africa’s legacy of resistance against apartheid and institutionalised discrimination.
A significant milestone for Afghan women and girls was South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s public expression of solidarity and recognition of the Taliban’s systematic oppression of women and girls as gender apartheid. Afghan women leaders and Malala met with the president, alongside engagements with the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO). These discussions highlighted the Taliban’s systematic oppression of women and girls, the urgent need for international recognition of gender apartheid and South Africa’s leadership in advancing accountability and international action.
Gaisu Yari and Malala Yousafzai speaking from South Africa
Beyond high-level political engagements, Afghan women leaders participated in extensive media interviews and meaningful exchanges with South African grassroots organisations, feminist movements, legal experts and human rights institutions. These engagements provided opportunities to share lived experiences, build solidarity across movements and strengthen collective advocacy for gender justice.
ICC update on Taliban arrest warrants
The ICC unsealed arrest warrants for four senior Taliban leaders for persecuting women and girls. It's a victory for the Afghan women who documented these human rights abuses at enormous personal risk. The ICC named Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani, Minister of Education Habibullah Agha and Minister of Higher Education Neda Mohammad Nadim in the warrants — with Agha and Nadim named publicly for the first time.
Marking 5 years of resistance, solidarity and accountability at UNGA81
Malala Yousafzai and Afghan women speaking at UNGA81.
During the 81st session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Ireland’s Permanent Mission to the U.N. and Malala Fund, alongside co-sponsors, convened a high-level event marking five years of Taliban rule in Afghanistan. The event, one of many focused on Afghanistan, centred Afghan women’s voices, strengthened international solidarity, and called for sustained political action, accountability, and principled engagement without normalising relations with the Taliban.
You can watch the full programme and hear directly from Afghan women and international leaders about the urgent need for collective action.
On October 7, Ireland also announced €3 million in funding to support women and girls in Afghanistan. This commitment further demonstrates Ireland’s continued leadership and solidarity with Afghan women and girls amid the ongoing human rights crisis.
Key readings
Celebrating Navi Pillay
We are deeply delighted to celebrate Navi Pillay’s Noble Peace Price Award which shows her extraordinary courage, leadership, and lifelong commitment to human rights and justice continue to inspire generations of women around the world. As a trailblazer in international law and a tireless advocate for equality and accountability, she has shown us what principled leadership looks like, even in the face of immense challenges. Her dedication to standing with those whose voices have been silenced is a powerful reminder that justice requires courage, persistence, and humanity.
Read her recent article on Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan. Drawing on her experience of apartheid in South Africa, Pillay highlights the parallels with the Taliban’s systematic oppression of Afghan women and calls for gender apartheid to be recognized in the proposed Crimes against Humanity Convention
Exploring the gendered dimensions of apartheid
“The Patriarchal Project of Apartheid: Exploring the Gendered Dimensions of Apartheid and International Justice Pathways Forward”, published in the Minnesota Journal of International Law, examines the gendered dimensions of apartheid, highlighting how South Africa’s apartheid regime was rooted not only in white supremacy but also in patriarchal structures that reinforced racial and gender-based oppression. Drawing comparisons with Israel’s apartheid regime in occupied Palestine, the article explores how gender-based oppression is part and parcel of the apartheid regime.
It also examines the emerging norm of gender apartheid under international law, and emphasises the need for more intersectional approaches to justice and accountability that address the multitude of intersecting identities and vulnerabilities subjected to apartheid regimes and the lived experiences of victims and survivors.
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, Senior Advocacy and Policy Manager, Afghanistan Initiative