VIDC Podcast and Policy Brief: Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan
2025-05-23 - 2025-05-24 | Vienna
On 23 and 24 May, the Afghan Cultural Association AKIS is organizing the conference “Against Gender Apartheid. Promoting Afghan women and girls through education and work” in cooperation with the VIDC, the Vienna Chamber of Labor and the trade union women in 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
In response to the Taliban’s misogynistic system, Afghan women have launched campaigns and engaged in transnational networks to have gender-specific persecution and discrimination recognized as gender apartheid. The aim of the campaigns is to provide victims and survivors of gender apartheid with a legal framework to hold the Taliban accountable as perpetrators under international law. To support the campaigns, VIDC Global Dialogue has drafted a policy brief.
Background
Since their return to power in August 2021 and the establishment of their Islamic Emirate, the Taliban have imposed a system of gender apartheid. They have made sweeping changes to governance that disproportionately restrict women’s freedoms, dismantling the 2004 Afghan constitution and abolishing all legal bodies that promote gender equality. One of the Taliban’s first restrictive measures was the replacement of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs – a body that strengthened women’s rights – with the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, an institution designed to enforce a strict interpretation of Sharia law. In addition, the Taliban disbanded the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, which has provided crucial support to Afghans affected by human rights violations. Through these measures, the Taliban have institutionalized the systematic persecution of Afghan women and girls on the basis of their gender.
In July 2024, the policy of persecuting women and girls, which had previously been enforced through decrees and directives, was codified in the Morality Law for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, ratified by the leader of Afghanistan Hibatullah Achundsada and published in the official gazette of the Taliban’s Ministry of Justice. This law has institutionalized the oppression of Afghan women and girls and created a deep divide between men and women. Every aspect of a woman’s and girl’s life is now controlled and restricted by regulations.
May 23: Evening reception in Vienna’s Rathauskeller

Opening: Councillor Andrea Mautz
Welcome words: Ghousuddin Mir (Chairman AKIS), Magda Seewald (VIDC)
Brief statements: Asiye Sel (Vienna Chamber of Labor), Karin Zimmermann (Federal Secretary for Women in the Austrian Trade Union Federation), Şafak Akçay (local councillor), Manizha Bakhtari (Ambassador of Afghanistan to Austria), Friba Sadeq (Banu magazine)
Statement on the Vienna Afghanistan Process: Wolfgang Petritsch (President, Austrian Institute for International Affairs)
Short inputs:
Tahmina Salik (Empowement For Her) and Shagofah Ghafori (Afghan human rights activist): On the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan and the status of the initiative to recognize gender apartheid
Maryam Singh (Counselling Centre 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.”
Presentation of the Rabia 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)

Venue:
VIDC – Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation
Möllwaldplatz 5/9
1040 Vienna
