Condemned but Unchallenged: The Global Failure to Confront Gender Apartheid
Let’s name the injustice
Four and a half years after the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan, the country is facing a steadily worsening humanitarian crisis. The Taliban, religious militants, are practicing gender apartheid, disregarding internationally recognized women's rights by establishing a regime of oppression and segregation. The misogynistic system is based on the reintroduction of a religiously fundamentalist and ideologically anchored reform policy that manifests patriarchal structures. As with the first Taliban rule, the international community condemns such discriminatory policies, yet fails to implement effective measures to end gender apartheid. Additionally, to the life-threatening practices women and girls face within their country, the international community misses to centre the voices of Islamic feminists to end gender apartheid. The non-recognition of institutionalized violence against women and girls is just another indicator that women’s rights are getting sidelined on the global scale. Let’s have a closer look on who’s being silenced and why the acknowledgment of gender apartheid within an international law’s framework is a powerful tool to fight gender segregation.
Who is being silenced?
While the Taliban are doing everything they can to exclude women and girls from public life, Islamic feminists continue to resist gender apartheid and challenge its religious justifications. Gender apartheid, a term gaining popularity in the 1990s to describe the systematic discrimination of women, was commonly used to characterise conditions in societies where women were highly marginalised and subjected to severe restrictions in areas such as education, employment, and political participation. Similar to racial apartheid, it highlights the systematic, institutionalized and governmental nature of such discriminatory practices.
Yet the most dangerous silence is not imposed by the Taliban alone. The exclusion of the women and girls resisting gender apartheid at the international level has significantly limited their visibility, representation, and influence within global human rights discourse/talks. Although a group of Special Envoys on Afghanistan, representatives from regional countries and around the world, as well as the Afghan de facto authorities keep meeting in Doha to discuss the future of Afghanistan, the ones suffering the most under the Taliban’s practices of gender apartheid are not represented at those talks. The UN declares in a statement published in June 2024 that the third meeting focuses on “how to advance international engagement on Afghanistan in a more coherent, coordinated and structured manner.”. Just in a second step, they explain that the full integration of Afghanistan in the international community includes compliance with international human rights, particularly those of women and girls. This approach is only one example of how the safeguarding of women’s rights is made a condition but not a foundation of inclusion, legitimacy and justice within global governance.
Despite the international failure to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, women and girls keep on fighting for their rights. One example of the ongoing resistance is the Purple Saturdays Movement, a group of young Afghan women organising protests against the misogynistic practices. While women and girls are banned from demonstrating in public, members of the group continue their resistance by organising indoor protests as well as activities to improve their visibility in public spaces. Following the Doha meetings, they call for instance “on the international community to take practical action to defend women's rights, the urgent need for comprehensive and sustained international intervention[…] [and to] facilitate direct dialogue between them and the Taliban.” On top they point out that the previous concerns of the international community and UN about the plight of Afghan women have been largely ineffective. We call for the ones in power to listen to the demands of Islamic feminists risking their lives to conquer a system of oppression. Current approaches to combating institutionalized violence against women and girls are just another sign of the international low point in women's rights today and nothing more than a repeat of past failures.
Recognition and responsibility
Recognising gender apartheid as a crime against humanity is not a symbolic gesture-it is a legal and political necessity. As with racial apartheid, gender apartheid describes a system of institutionalised domination that is enforced by the state, sustained through law, and maintained by violence. Framing the Taliban’s policies merely as “human rights violations” obscures its systematic nature and allows international actors to respond with condemnation rather than obligation. Legal recognition within international law would shift gender apartheid from a matter of concern to a matter of responsibility, requiring concrete action more than diplomatic caution.
Failure to recognise gender apartheid also enables political normalisation. By engaging with the Taliban while treating women’s rights as a negotiable condition rather than a non-negotiable foundation, the international community reinforces a hierarchy in which stability and diplomacy outweigh justice and equality. This approach not only legitimises exclusion but also undermines the demands of Islamic feminists who have consistently called for accountability, recognition and direct participation in decisions shaping their future. Ignoring these calls reproduces the very structures of power that allow gender apartheid to persist.
Responsibility therefore lies not only with the Taliban, but also with international institutions and states that continue to engage without consequence. Listening to Islamic feminists, recognising gender apartheid as a crime against humanity and refusing to normalise a regime built on segregation are not radical demands- are minimum requirements for justice. Without this shift, global commitments to women’s rights risk remaining rhetorical, while gender apartheid in Afghanistan and beyond continues unchallenged.
Gender Apartheid demands action
Gender apartheid in Afghanistan is not only enforced by the Taliban, it is sustained by an international system that continues to marginalize the voices of those resisting it. Islamic feminists have made their demands clear: recognition, accountability and the centering of women’s political agency in all decisions shaping Afghanistan’s future. Yet their struggles remain sidelined by Western-dominated narratives that reproduce epistemic violence and reduce Afghan women to passive victims rather than political actors. After more than a thousand days of systematic exclusion, segregation and violence, recognition of gender apartheid as a crime against humanity is no longer optional- it is overdue. Supporting local feminist resistance and refusing to normalize regimes built on segregation is a test of global commitment to gender justice. As imprisoned Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi reminds us: “The time to declare gender apartheid has come. It is time to stand up and rise.”
About the author:
Juliane Hilla is a Global Studies graduate and communications practitioner working at the intersection of gender justice, global governance, and digital advocacy. Her research engages intersectional feminism with a particular focus on insights from Islamic feminist thought and critiques of dominant global approaches to gender equality. Alongside her academic work, she has experience in international communications, youth political engagement, and education in intercultural settings.
