Open Society Welcomes Step Toward Justice for Afghan Women and Girls

NEW YORK-The Open Society Foundations celebrate the decision of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to seek arrest warrants for leaders of the Taliban in Afghanistan, holding them accountable for the crime against humanity of persecution by gender.

The decision represents a historic step toward justice for Afghan women and girls who have been subject to the cruel misogyny of a regime that has sought to render them invisible, snatching away from them their rights to education, work, speech, and freedom of movement.

Since seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban has imposed the world's most extreme decrees barring girls from school, women in workplaces, and mandating full body coverings and even forbidding women to be heard outside their homes.

The application for arrest warrants is also a victory for women and girls globally, serving as a crucial advancement of international law to protect their rights and a deterrent against other regimes who are seeking to roll back the rights of women and girls. If successful, this could lead to the first-ever ICC convictions for gender persecution-demonstrating why international justice is so crucial, ensuring that no one is beyond the reach of the law.

"Afghan women and girls finally have a chance to secure justice for the cruelty they have endured since the Taliban's takeover," said Binaifer Nowrojee, president of the Open Society Foundations. "Without the ICC and other international tribunals, Afghan women and girls would have nowhere else to turn to hold the Taliban accountable."

Karim Khan QC, the ICC's prosecutor, today announced that his office is seeking two applications for arrest warrants after establishing that "there are reasonable grounds to believe" that Haibatullah Akhunzada, the supreme leader of the Taliban, and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the Taliban's chief justice, are both criminally responsible for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds under the Rome Statute that governs the court.

Open Society worked in Afghanistan through a national foundation for two decades, up to the Taliban's takeover in 2021, supporting education, free media, women's empowerment, and human rights.