The Afghan Cultural Association AKIS is organizing a conference entitled “Against Gender Apartheid! Promoting Afghan women and girls through education and work” on 23 and 24 May 2025 in cooperation with the VIDC, the Vienna Chamber of Labor, and the women's union of the Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB). The reception and conference will address the situation of gender apartheid, in particular the catastrophic educational situation of Afghan girls and women.
Policy Brief: Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan. Recognition as a Crime Against Humanity
Since August 2021 and in response to the Taliban’s misogynistic system, Afghan women have set up campaigns and engaged in transnational advocacy networks to advocate for the recognition of gender-based persecution and discrimination as gender apartheid. The common aim of these campaigns is to provide victims and survivors of gender apartheid with a legal framework to hold the Taliban accountable as perpetrators under international law. VIDC Global Dialogue has drafted a policy brief to support the campaigns.
Background
Since returning to power in August 2021 and establishing its Islamic Emirate, the Taliban has enforced a system of gender apartheid. They have introduced sweeping governance changes that disproportionately restrict women’s freedoms and dismantled Afghanistan’s 2004 Constitution, abolishing all legal bodies that formerly promoted gender equality. One of the Taliban’s first restrictive measures was the replacement of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs – a body that empowered women – with the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, an institution dedicated to enforcing a strict interpretation of Shari’a law. Furthermore, the Taliban dismantled the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, which had previously provided crucial support to Afghans facing human rights violations. Through these measures, the Taliban has institutionalised the systematic persecution of Afghan women and girls based on gender.
In July 2024, the policy of persecuting women and girls, which had previously been enforced through decrees and directives, was enshrined in the Morality Law for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which was ratified by the Supreme Leader of Afghanistan Hibatullah Akhundzada and published in the Taliban’s Ministry of Justice gazette. This law institutionalised the oppression of Afghan women and girls and created a deep divide between men and women. Every aspect of women’s and girls’ lives is now controlled and restricted by regulations.
23 May: Reception at Wiener Rathauskeller
- Opening: Municipal Councillor Andrea Mautz
- Welcome words: Ghousuddin Mir (Chairman AKIS), Magda Seewald (VIDC)
- Brief statements: Asiye Sel (Vienna Chamber of Labor), Karin Zimmermann (Federal Women's Secretary at the Austrian Trade Union Federation), Municipal Councillor Şafak Akçay, Manizha Bakhtari (Ambassador of Afghanistan to Austria), Friba Sadeq (Banu Magazine)
- Statement in relation to the Vienna Afghanistan Process: Wolfgang Petritsch (President of the Austrian Institute for International Affairs)
- Panel:
Tahmina Salik (Danish Afghan Women Diaspora Forum) and Shagofah Ghafori (Human Rights Activist): On the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan and the status of the initiative to recognize gender apartheid
Maryam Singh (Counseling Center for Migrants, Austria): On the situation of Afghan women and girls in Austria
Palwasha Kakar (former Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Women's Affairs, Afghanistan) and Forozan Zamani (Student): Solidarity with Afghan women and girls - Video presented by Palwasha Hamzad: “AKIS education initiatives in Europe and Kabul.”
- Rabi-Balkhi-Award: Fereshteh Sama
- Special prize for diaspora engagement in Austria: Zahra Hashimi, OMID Online School
- Moderation: Sharmila Hashimi (AKIS), Michael Fanizadeh (VIDC)
- Musical accompaniment (Hadis Rostami and Masih Shadab)