The ICC is Pursuing Charges of Gender Persecution Against the Taliban. Will it Succeed?
This article was co-published with Middle East Uncovered.
A decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to pursue arrest warrants against senior Taliban leaders could reshape how the world responds to authoritarian regimes that systematically strip women and girls of basic human rights.
In January, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan announced that his office is seeking arrest warrants for two Taliban officials on charges of crimes against humanity for gender-based persecution—marking the first time this charge is being tested in the court’s history and the first serious legal effort to hold perpetrators accountable.
For Azadah Raz Mohammad, an Afghan legal scholar and human rights lawyer living in exile in Australia, the new move represents an important milestone. “It’s our first historical step toward accountability,” she told More to Her Story. “We’ve never had anything like this, nationally or internationally.”
The Taliban’s response? So far, denial and defiance. In late February, its leaders said that Afghanistan’s membership in the ICC under the previous government is invalid and dismissed the court’s jurisdiction. But under international law, the facts are clear. Because the Afghan government signed the Rome Statute in 2003, recognizing the jurisdiction of the ICC in Afghanistan for crimes against humanity, the ICC’s authority in Afghanistan remains in force, and the Taliban — which is not a recognized government body — are responsible for crimes committed while exercising de facto control over the country, human rights leaders said.
“The Taliban have no legal capacity to withdraw from treaties,” Azadah said. “Even if they did, the crimes already committed fall squarely under ICC jurisdiction. It’s absurd on its face.”
What’s not absurd is the reality for Afghan women and girls, advocates affirmed. Today, a 12-year-old girl in Kabul wakes up knowing she won’t see the inside of a classroom. Women are barred from secondary education and from working, leaving home without a male guardian, and studying midwifery; this in a country where a woman dies of pregnancy-related complications approximately every 30 minutes.
“No country in the world has institutionalized this level of gender apartheid,” Azadah said. “And yet, the world seems willing to look away.”
Yet the Taliban's edicts are not only about gender. After seizing power in 2021, the group dismantled Afghanistan’s 2004 Constitution — which had recognized ethnic diversity and equal rights — as well as the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and other institutions linked to the country’s legal and civic reforms made before their takeover.
Azadah remembers the past. Her childhood was marked by the Taliban’s first reign of terror in the 1990s, and then her adulthood was marked by a war in which the Taliban fought to regain control. “I lost my friends, family members, and colleagues to Taliban atrocities,” she said. “People think there was peace from 2001 to 2021. But the Taliban were always attacking, always killing civilians, especially those working in human rights.”
Now, almost four years after the Taliban’s return to power, women who once ran companies and nonprofit organizations or worked as judges are hiding in their homes or are languishing in prison. But Azadah believes the ICC case can open a door. “We’ve heard from women inside Afghanistan,” she said. “One told me, ‘We’re happy we’re not forgotten.’ This is a ray of hope.”
For women activists living inside Afghanistan, the work continues in secret and at great personal risk. One activist, speaking on condition of anonymity, emphasized that Afghan women abroad have become an unofficial lifeline for those still inside the country. “We operate under the umbrella of the International Consensus of Afghan Women Abroad,” she explained. “Every month, we organize virtual programs on how to survive these crises, because women inside Afghanistan can’t safely voice their concerns on television or online. We gather their stories through encrypted channels, through colleagues, and through their presence at global conferences.”
Despite persistent outreach, the activist said the pleas of Afghan women and girls have gone largely unanswered. “No country in the world has truly acted on behalf of Afghan women,” she said. “We’ve lost colleagues — some imprisoned, others mysteriously murdered. And when international media amplify our warnings, we fear retaliation so much that we hesitate to even identify ourselves.”
Recent events in Afghanistan underscore the urgency. On April 11, the Taliban publicly executed four men in stadiums packed with spectators in Laghman and Ghazni provinces. The killings were coordinated public spectacles, not secret murders — echoes of the Taliban’s reign of terror in the 1990s, designed to instill fear and assert dominance.
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the executions, warning they violated international law and revealed the regime’s ongoing use of corporal punishment and death penalties without due process.
“These acts are deeply troubling,” the UN agency said in a statement. “They are often carried out after proceedings that fail to meet even the most basic standards of fairness.”
The Taliban claim these executions uphold Islamic “justice.” But their actions — denying women the right to education, imprisoning them in their homes, flogging them in public, and executing individuals without fair trials — are rooted not in religion, but in authoritarian control.
Azadah is clear: “What they are doing predates Islam. Islam guarantees education, dignity, and livelihood for women. The Taliban’s actions are antithetical to Islamic principles.”
For Zahir, a journalist and radio host still actively engaged in Afghan media advocacy, the Taliban’s brutality is not theoretical — it shapes her daily life and work. For security reasons, we are withholding her full name.
“I began covering the Taliban’s abuses because I believed in the right to truth and justice,” she told More to Her Story. “During the first year of the regime, I was in direct contact with protestors — women lawyers, teachers, and journalists — many of whom were later arrested or tortured.”
Her journalism is now conducted under a veil of secrecy. “I’ve had to go into hiding,” she said. “I’ve changed my name, my location, and my voice on air. But I won’t stop. Silence is not an option.”
She continues to report through encrypted communication tools, radio broadcasts, and underground networks. Her work includes raising awareness about the ICC investigation, a topic the Taliban works hard to suppress.
“In rural areas, people often haven’t even heard of the ICC,” she said. “We use storytelling and simple explanations to reach women who can’t read, who don’t have internet, who are afraid.”
Before the Taliban’s return in 2021, Afghan women had made strides in journalism, education, and civil society. “We had female news anchors, producers, writers,” Zahir recalled. “Now that entire generation is silenced.”
The erasure of women from the media has had devastating consequences. “Without women reporters,” she explained, “stories about violence, education bans, disappearances — they’re not being told. This weakens international understanding, and it weakens public pressure.”
Even the ability to report truthfully is seen as a threat. “In the eyes of the Taliban,” she said, “a woman with a microphone is as dangerous as a protester on the street.”
Zahir reflects candidly on the challenge of maintaining journalistic objectivity while covering human rights atrocities. “I have to report fairly. That’s my duty,” she said. “But when the facts themselves are horrifying, just stating them feels like a form of protest.”
She sees advocacy and journalism not as mutually exclusive, but as complementary. “My work is to inform. But if that truth empowers action, that’s a good thing.”
Azadah and Zahir both emphasized the importance of international solidarity. There is growing momentum. Along with the ICC case, countries are pursuing a parallel case at the International Court of Justice under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Advocates are also pushing to enshrine “gender apartheid” as a distinct international crime, and Azadah believes these efforts are complementary. “They shine a light on the scale of the atrocities. And they could pave the way for future cases.”
Still, enforcement remains a major hurdle. The ICC has no police powers, and Taliban leaders are unlikely to travel where they risk arrest. “That’s why universal jurisdiction matters,” Azadah said. “Other countries can and must act if perpetrators cross their borders.”
An ICC spokesman told More to Her Story that there haven’t been any new developments regarding the arrest warrants of Taliban officials.
Zahir offers a direct message to policymakers and human rights organizations: “Don’t just watch. Act. Fund independent Afghan media. Provide legal and security support. Amplify our stories. Help us survive and be heard.”
Azadah hopes that one day, a post-Taliban Afghanistan could create a hybrid tribunal or restart its national courts as a transitional justice mechanism. Until then, the international community must not settle for statements of concern. It must fund the ICC’s work, share intelligence, and pursue justice with the seriousness these crimes demand.
When asked how she endures this work, “It’s draining,” Azadah admitted. “But if we give up, who will tell the world what’s happening? Who will defend the next generation? We cannot afford to move on. Not while journalists are forced underground, not while girls are denied education, not while executions return to stadiums.”
The ICC’s case against the Taliban is more than a legal test. It is a moral reckoning; one that advocates believe is long overdue.