The Missing Half

The International Criminal Court (ICC) will seek arrest warrants for senior Afghani Taliban leaders accused of persecuting women “on gender grounds,” the court’s chief prosecutor announced Thursday, calling the extreme restrictions on women’s work, education, and liberty “a crime against humanity,” France 24 reported.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan said there were reasonable grounds to suspect that Taliban Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani “bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds.”

He alleged that Afghan women, girls, and members of the LGBTQ community were facing “an unprecedented, unconscionable, and ongoing persecution” by the Taliban since they took control in 2021.

While some say the current Taliban government has established a “softer” regime compared with the Taliban government that ruled between 1996 and 2001, the Taliban has almost completely erased women from public life.

Akhundzada banned all 20 million women from attending secondary school and university – even amid internal disagreement among Taliban officials, Reuters reported.

Most women are banned from work – including as midwives, and from visiting public parks, gyms, and baths. They cannot sing or recite poetry in public and are forbidden from traveling long distances unless chaperoned by a male.

In 2022, Akhundzada also issued a diktat ordering women to be fully covered in public – including their faces.

The international court will now consider Khan’s request with a decision expected in the coming weeks.

The chief prosecutor also said he would try to issue other warrants against Taliban officials.

The Taliban government seeks formal diplomatic recognition internationally but Islamic scholars and Western diplomats have said that few states will grant such status unless they change their policies toward women. Even so, some such as Russia have been making overtures.

While the Taliban insist that women’s rights are guaranteed according to Islamic law, the Taliban’s acting deputy foreign minister, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, recently asked authorities to open high schools for Afghan girls in an attempt to dampen disapproval and encourage international recognition of the Taliban, NBC News reported. He also called the closure, “an injustice.” Reuters noted.