New political commitments on gender equality made in Madrid must now translate into legal, financial and diplomatic action to codify gender apartheid and reform global debt to benefit girls.
I spent last week at the 5th Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policy, where 28 governments across regions made commitments on gender equality.
At Malala Fund, two issues sit at the core of our global advocacy: codifying gender apartheid in international law and reforming how the world finances education. The joint political declaration, with signatories as diverse as Mexico, Rwanda, Spain, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay, speaks to both. It also speaks to something more fundamental: the role of civil society in pressing governments to make statements that reflect the lived realities of those most affected by the policies they seek to advance.
On gender apartheid: The elements are there. Now governments should act.
The declaration commits to “ensuring accountability under international law for the establishment of institutionalized regimes that result in systematic gender-based oppression and domination.”
This language describes exactly what the Taliban has built in Afghanistan since August 2021: a system designed, by over 200 decrees, laws and orders, to strip women and girls of their freedom and erase them from public life.
Throughout the conference, governments and civil society had the privilege of hearing from Afghan women whose lives have been shaped by decades of Taliban repression. Gaisu Yari, Malala Fund’s Advocacy & Policy Manager for the Afghanistan Initiative, experienced the first Taliban regime as a child and has dedicated her career to fighting for girls and women’s freedoms. Activist Horia Mosadiq also lived through the first Taliban regime and is now watching her daughter survive the second. In January 2022, the Taliban detained and tortured activist Tamana Zaryab Paryani for three weeks for refusing to disappear, yet she continued to speak out.
Their testimonies were a powerful reminder that behind every policy debate are women and girls living the consequences of the international community's choices.
The declaration’s language reflects years of work by Afghan women and their allies to make the international community see what the Taliban has built: institutionalised, systematic gender-based oppression and domination – what Afghan women have long recognised as gender apartheid.
Under international law, apartheid covers a range of serious acts including imprisonment, torture, persecution and the denial of basic rights, but only when those acts form part of a deliberate, institutionalised and systematic effort by one racial group to dominate and suppress others. The Taliban’s institutionalised regime of systematic domination of women, girls and others in Afghanistan meets these elements – but based on gender, not race. There is currently no crime under international law to capture it.
The declaration’s recognition of the core elements of the Taliban’s gender apartheid regime is an important milestone. Now governments must take the step further and legally recognise gender apartheid as an international crime. As long as gender apartheid goes unrecognised as a crime against humanity, the world is without one of its most powerful legal and political tools — both to respond to what is happening to women and girls in Afghanistan today, and to prevent it from taking hold elsewhere in the future.
On debt and girls' rights: The financing problem is named. Education as the answer isn't.
"The declaration commits to placing gender equality at the centre of the international financial architecture and calls for important steps to this end, including fairer tax policies and urging governments to consider the impact on women and girls in budgeting, spending and economic policy. It also calls on Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) to step up action on addressing discriminatory economic barriers and a new goal on ending poverty experienced by women."
But even as the global debt crisis worsens, threatening rollbacks on girls’ rights and putting girls at risk, the declaration stops short of recognising the system that produces the harm or the actors that uphold it: the creditors and the international financial institutions. It says nothing about how debt is assessed, restructured or repaid. Gender-responsive budgeting and progressive taxation matter, but they work on the domestic side of the ledger; they will not reform the unjust external debt system.
And here is what we know to be true: when governments are forced to choose between debt servicing and education budgets, girls lose first. Dozens of low-income countries now spend more servicing debt than on health and education combined. The consequence is costly: the World Bank estimates that failing to educate girls costs countries between $15-30 trillion in lost lifetime earnings.
Progress on gender equality will remain out of reach if governments fail to tackle the debt crisis that is forcing many countries to cut spending on education and other essential services for girls.
Governments, especially those with the greatest influence over the global debt system — like France and the U.K., both of which signed the declaration — need to act not only to address today's debt crisis but also to change the rules that created it. They must stop prioritising debt repayments over investments in girls' futures.
Countries should not treat girls' education as a budget line that can be cut when they face financial pressure. Educated girls are more likely to participate in the workforce, earn higher incomes, improve health outcomes and strengthen their communities — which, when taken together, help countries build stronger economies and reduce vulnerability to future debt crises.
What the declaration should say, but doesn’t, is that education should be protected as an essential investment in economic growth, resilience and long-term prosperity. A truly feminist approach to economic policy would put girls before creditors and recognise education not as a casualty of the debt crisis, but as one of the most powerful tools for overcoming it.
From recognition to action
The declaration demonstrates that governments are increasingly willing to acknowledge the realities women and girls face, but recognition is only the beginning. Whether in Afghanistan, where women and girls are living under a system of institutionalised gender oppression, or in countries forced to cut education budgets to meet debt repayments, the challenge is not simply to describe the harm but to change the conditions that produce it. Governments must now translate political commitments into legal, financial and diplomatic action. That includes recognising gender apartheid under international law, reforming a global debt system that too often puts creditors ahead of girls and protecting education as a non-negotiable investment in equality, prosperity and freedom.
The declaration is also a testament to the power of sustained pressure from activists, advocates, researchers, and women and girls in helping to redefine what governments see, name and ultimately act upon. Women and girls need more than statements. More than ever, they need governments willing to turn those words into lasting change.
