Afghanistan Peace Campaign
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai has urged world leaders not to abandon Afghanistan’s women and girls, calling for urgent international action to end what she described as the Taliban’s “gender apartheid” and hold the group accountable for systematic discrimination.
Speaking at a high-level event titled “Women and Girls in Afghanistan: Five Years of Resistance, Solidarity and the Pursuit of Accountability” on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly, Yousafzai said Afghan women have continued to resist despite being erased from public life.
“Five years of Taliban rule have stolen the future of an entire generation of Afghan girls,” Yousafzai said, warning that millions of girls have been denied education, employment and basic freedoms since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.
Yousafzai said she has met Afghan girls who continue studying in secret underground schools despite the Taliban’s ban on secondary and university education for women. She described their determination as evidence that Afghan women “have not surrendered” despite years of restrictions.
She called on governments attending the UN General Assembly to place the rights of Afghan women and girls at the center of international engagement with Afghanistan. She urged states to formally recognize the Taliban’s treatment of women as gender apartheid, a term increasingly used by Afghan activists and human rights organizations to describe institutionalized discrimination based on gender.
The Taliban have barred girls from secondary schools and universities, prohibited many women from working for NGOs and the United Nations, and imposed extensive restrictions on women’s movement, dress and participation in public life. The United Nations has repeatedly said the measures amount to unprecedented violations of women’s rights.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres and senior UN officials have also warned that excluding women and girls from education and public life is deepening Afghanistan’s humanitarian and economic crisis, while isolating the country internationally.
International human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have renewed calls for governments to pursue accountability mechanisms against Taliban officials responsible for policies targeting women and girls. Several countries have also supported efforts to advance the recognition of gender apartheid under international law.
Yousafzai said the international community should not normalize relations with the Taliban without measurable improvements in women’s rights. She stressed that Afghan women “deserve freedom, dignity and equal opportunities,” and called for sustained diplomatic pressure until discriminatory policies are reversed.
The event at the United Nations brought together Afghan women activists, diplomats and human rights advocates to mark five years since the Taliban’s return to power and discuss international accountability for ongoing restrictions on women and girls in Afghanistan.