End Gender Apartheid

There are several pathways for criminalizing gender apartheid under international law, including through codification in the proposed UN crimes against humanity treaty, an amendment of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, or recognition in a separate treaty specifically focused on gender apartheid.

The End Gender Apartheid Campaign is focused on codifying the crime in the crimes against humanity treaty, the first major UN treaty on core international crimes since the Rome Statute. The treaty will be negotiated from 2026-2029 and the Campaign proposes amending the existing draft crime of apartheid to include gender.

For more information on the Campaign’s proposal for codifying the crime against humanity of gender apartheid in the UN crimes against humanity treaty, see the Campaign’s Joint Letter & Legal Brief to UN Member States, which was endorsed by dozens of leading activists, jurists, and public figures.

The crime of gender apartheid could also be codified under domestic law. Learn more about engaging with national legislatures.

The deteriorating situation for women and girls in Afghanistan should mobilize international action around codification, just as the brutality of the South African apartheid regime led to the original recognition of apartheid under international law. Many jurists and activists involved in dismantling apartheid in southern Africa have voiced support for the codification of gender apartheid. See the Letter from South African Jurists and Anti-Apartheid Experts for more information.

A key driver of the emerging solidarity between South African feminists and women, girls, and gender diverse individuals from Afghanistan has been the parallels between the two regimes: between the two regimes’ systematic domination and oppression and their plain intent to entrench and perpetuate totalizing harms; the gendered experiences of apartheid in South Africa, where non-white women, particularly black women, experienced distinct and disproportionate harms, and the concept of apartheid perpetrated based on gender; and the colonial roots of apartheid in South Africa and the colonial legacies responsible for the rise to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Gender apartheid codification would fill a glaring accountability gap, giving victims and survivors a new legal avenue to hold governments and individual perpetrators fully to account. Codification in the proposed UN crimes against humanity treaty could open the doors to robust legal and policy responses, including by obliging States parties to criminalize gender apartheid in their domestic laws and to take steps to prevent, punish, and not engage in the perpetration of gender apartheid. In the meantime, gender apartheid recognition could help mobilize a coordinated diplomatic response against the normalization of the Taliban regime, ensuring principled engagement.

The Campaign prioritizes an intersectional and inclusive approach to all its activities. The Campaign has benefited from extensive consultations with a diverse cross-section of Afghan and Iranian human rights defenders, including from LGBTQI+ communities and ethnic and religious minorities, as well as leading gender justice experts, international criminal lawyers, and anti-apartheid jurists and activists. The Campaign recognizes that while the same regressive logic of gender underpins the Taliban’s treatment of all individuals, their system of gender apartheid cannot be understood or dismantled without understanding the Taliban’s other intersecting prejudices, including ethnicity, religion, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

The Campaign defines “gender” as a socially constructed term that extends beyond the sex/gender binary and includes LGBTQI+ persons. The Campaign’s Legal Brief cites the International Criminal Court Office of the Prosecutor’s 2014 Policy Paper on Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes and 2022 Policy on the Crime of Gender Persecution, as well as the International, Impartial, and Independent Mechanism’s 2022 Gender Strategy and Implementation Plan–all of which recognize that gender is a social construct. The International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Humanity does not define “gender” in order to allow for flexibility as the jurisprudence of international law evolves over time.

The crime of apartheid is unique because it requires an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination, and the specific intent to maintain that regime. The crime of gender persecution does not have these contextual or intent requirements, and is instead focused on the deprivation of fundamental rights. The crimes of gender apartheid and gender persecution are equally serious and can coexist just as apartheid and racial persecution already coexist under international law, including in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The End Gender Apartheid Campaign supports an all-tools approach to the deteriorating situation for women, girls, and others in Afghanistan. This includes support and engagement with the ongoing efforts to hold the Taliban to account before the International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court, and other judicial forums–all of which will fundamentally help advance justice for gender apartheid. The Campaign views gender apartheid codification as a complementary, mutually reinforcing justice tool. The Campaign also supports recognition of the crime, context, and elements of gender apartheid across legal and political forums, as part of the shared effort to strengthen the norm against gender apartheid.