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By Richard Bennett
In its resolution 54/1, the Human Rights Council requested the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, with the support of other relevant special procedure mandate holders and treaty bodies, to prepare a report on the phenomenon of an institutionalized system of discrimination, segregation, disrespect for human dignity and exclusion of women and girls. As requested, the present report builds on the joint report submitted to the Human Rights Council at its fifty-third session by the Special Rapporteur and the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls. According to that report, the Taliban were perpetrating the most extreme forms of gender-based discrimination, with Afghan women describing the erosion of their rights as “the walls [closing] in”, leaving them “without hope”. The Special Rapporteur and the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls determined that the pattern of large scale systematic violations of women’s and girls’ fundamental rights in Afghanistan, abetted by the Taliban’s discriminatory and misogynist policies and harsh enforcement methods, constituted gender persecution and an institutionalized framework of gender apartheid, and provided detailed recommendations to the de facto authorities, States and the United Nations. The Special Rapporteur’s subsequent human rights reports to the General Assembly at its seventy-eighth session and the Human Rights Council at its fifty-fifth session include updates on the worsening situation for women and girls.
Keywords: Institutionalized discrimination, Gender apartheid, Taliban policies, Systematic violations, Women and girls’ rights, Gender persecution