On the morning of August 15, 2021, many woke up to scenes of terror and devastation flowing out of Kabul. As the Taliban retook control of the country overnight, a whole generation of Afghan women who had grown up studying, working, and dreaming within the confines of restricted freedoms gained over two decades saw their worlds fall apart. It is this fear that has been solidified into something more frightful: an imposed absence of women from the public arena. But there is an institutional reaction this time, which does not see this as merely a tragedy, but also a crime. On July 8, 2025, Hibatullah Akhundzada, Taliban Supreme Leader, and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, Taliban Chief Justice, were charged with crimes against humanity of gender persecution and consequently, arrest warrants were issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). It is a reckoning long overdue, one that not only vindicates the ordeal of Afghan women but also repositions it as a matter of international criminal accountability.
The ICC found reasonable grounds to believe that these two leaders are criminally responsible for policies and orders that have, since 2021, targeted women and girls because of their gender, depriving them of their rights to education, privacy, freedom of movement, expression, conscience, and religion. These are not isolated decrees but part of a state apparatus, meticulously designed and brutally enforced. Since seizing power, the Taliban have banned girls above the age of twelve from attending school, barred women from working in national and international NGOs, shut down beauty salons, restricted women from traveling without a male guardian, and forbidden them from visiting parks, gyms, and even from raising their voices in public. The UN has rightly described this as gender apartheid. It is not merely about excluding women; it is about redefining their legal and social existence to be invisible.
The statistics paint a grim picture. According to the UN, over 2.5 million Afghan girls are currently out of school, estimated to be 80 per cent of all school-age girls. Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where girls are formally banned from secondary and higher education. But education is only the most visible part of the Taliban’s broader campaign to eliminate women from society. Thousands of women have been forced to quit jobs, including those in healthcare, education, and humanitarian aid. Public-facing employment for women has all but vanished. In June 2024, the UN reported that the Taliban had dismantled the few remaining legal protections for women, including laws preventing forced marriage and violence. The Afghan justice system, as it stands today, is not a safeguard; it is a tool of domination.
What makes this moment particularly significant is that the ICC’s arrest warrants are not symbolic gestures. They are legal instruments with real consequences. Though Akhundzada and Haqqani are unlikely to surrender voluntarily, the warrants change the legal landscape. They authorise states to arrest the accused in case they continue to travel and legally justify future prosecutions, as well as sending a warning to Taliban leaders that they can no longer expect to live with impunity. As Human Rights Watch rightly stated, these men are now “wanted” — not merely condemned in speeches but indicted in court. More importantly, the ICC’s move provides legal grounds for increased asylum and protection for Afghan women abroad and discourages further international engagement with a regime led by accused war criminals.
In the context of crimes of gender persecution under Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute, the acts are not confined to those that are only physically violent. It involves structural and institutionalised harm: the imposition of discriminatory norms that make one gender inferior before the law and in practice. This distinction is important because a regime that pushes women into legal and social invisibility under the threat of imprisonment or violence can be called to account at the highest level. The inclusion of LGBTQI+ persons and non-conforming gender identities among the victims is another historic step. For the first time, an international tribunal has explicitly acknowledged that gender persecution includes sexual orientation and gender identity. This sets a legal precedent that extends far beyond Afghanistan.
The comparison to other cases of gender-based repression is not merely rhetorical. The Nigerian armed group Boko Haram engaged in similar tactics: banning education for girls, forcing women into marriage, and institutionalising violence as a tool of control. But the Taliban, unlike Boko Haram, operates not as a rogue group but as a de facto state. Its policies are enforced through ministries, courts, and police. Its judges, including Abdul Hakim Haqqani, are not warlords but architects of legal doctrine. This transforms the nature of the crime; it is not insurgent violence, but state-sponsored persecution.
There is no denying that enforcement of these warrants will be difficult. Akhundzada is reclusive, rarely seen in public, and remains in his stronghold in Kandahar. Haqqani’s movements are limited and protected. But as recent international cases have shown, political realities shift quickly. The handover of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte earlier this year on charges of crimes against humanity would have once seemed unlikely — until it wasn’t. Even if the Taliban leaders are never brought physically to trial, the ICC’s findings have already reshaped the narrative. It affirms that the treatment of Afghan women is not a cultural issue, not a domestic debate — it is a legal wrong under international law.
For Afghan women, the warrants offer a measure of recognition after years of abandonment. They validate the work of human rights defenders, many of whom have risked their lives to document violations, and others, like Parwana Ibrahimkhail Nijrabi, who speak from exile after surviving Taliban detention. They also serve as a rallying point for those calling on the international community to stop legitimising the Taliban through quiet diplomacy or humanitarian exceptionalism. As Amnesty International has urged, the world must not only support the ICC but also push for codifying gender apartheid as a crime under international law. Anything less would be complicity.
The Taliban’s rule has always rested on a project of domination, of reordering society so that women are rendered voiceless, invisible, and entirely dependent on male authority. This is not governance; it is subjugation. What the ICC ruling does, for the first time, is call this project by its real name: a crime. And while it may not yet bring justice, it has reopened a path toward it. The world must now decide whether to follow.
Bibliography
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/06/taliban-and-global-backlash-against-womens-rights
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/13642987.2024.2369584?needAccess=true
