The measures taken by the Taliban against women in Afghanistan may constitute “a crime against humanity”, warned the G7 foreign ministers in a press release issued on Thursday.
The ministers, who met via video conference, called on the Taliban regime to reverse its decision to ban women from studying at university and ban girls from secondary education.
And they warn Kabul of possible consequences before the International Criminal Court in The Hague: “gender-based persecution may constitute a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute, to which Afghanistan is a state party”.
“Taliban policies aimed at erasing women from public life will have consequences for our countries’ relations with the Taliban,” they warn.
“The recent measures taken by the Taliban, which come on top of previous cumulative measures restricting the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms of women and girls in Afghanistan, are extremely concerning and appear to constitute a systematic policy,” they lament.
During a press briefing in Berlin with her Danish counterpart, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock drove home the point, calling the Taliban’s recent decisions against women’s education “a new step towards ‘cave age’.
But it is not the only one, she said, recalling that in recent months the Taliban had multiplied the restrictions on freedom imposed on women: “not only do they no longer have the right to study, but they no longer have the right to go to parks, leave their homes without a veil”.
The ban on higher education in Afghanistan comes less than three months after thousands of young women took university entrance exams. Universities are currently on winter vacation and are expected to reopen in March.
Most teenage girls across the country have already been banned from secondary education, severely limiting university admission.
A decision “neither Muslim nor human”, judges Turkey
The ban on Afghan women from going to university, decided by the Taliban regime, is a decision “neither Muslim nor humane”, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday.
“This prohibition is neither Muslim nor humane. We reject this ban, we don’t believe it is fair. Let’s hope, God willing, that they will renounce this decision,” the minister declared during a press conference.
“How does the education of women hurt humanity? asked Mr. Cavusoglu.
Turkey, whose majority population is Muslim, is the only NATO member country to have kept an open embassy in Kabul since the Taliban came to power in August 2021.
Iran, which borders Turkey and Afghanistan, also regretted “learning that Afghan girls and women face obstacles to study in universities”, said the spokesman for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. foreigners, Nasser Kanani, in a press release.
Tehran hopes Afghan officials “will quickly pave the way for the resumption of girls’ education at all levels”, he added.
Iran has high levels of female education, but the country is currently being heavily criticized by Western countries for its violent crackdown on protests that have rocked the Islamic Republic since September.
Triggered by the death of a young Iranian Kurd arrested by the morality police, they turned into a protest movement against the regime.
The United States condemned “in the strongest terms” the Taliban’s decision, which Paris found “deeply shocking”, while Britain castigated a “serious step backwards”.