The first panel, moderated by Zakira Rasooli, examined gender apartheid as a governing ideology, the lived realities and resistance of Afghan women, and the challenges and progress of international advocacy. Panelists included Rina Amiri, Mursel Sabir, Malalai Habibi, and Tahmina Sobat.

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Rina Amiri, co-founder of the Alliance for Justice and Diplomacy and former U.S. Special Envoy for Afghan Women, Girls, and Human Rights, emphasized the importance of naming and legally framing systemic oppression in Afghanistan to prevent its normalization in international diplomacy. She highlighted that the absence of a clear legal designation can reduce the urgency of international response and allow gradual normalization of abuses. She argued that when violations are not explicitly named, they are more easily reframed as cultural, religious, or political issues, which can dilute accountability and enable states to justify inaction. Amiri stressed that, unlike other historical or global contexts, Afghanistan under the Taliban represents a highly centralized and deliberate system of institutionalized exclusion of women, which she suggested underscores the importance of conceptualizing the situation as “gender apartheid.” In her view, codification is not only a legal exercise but also a mechanism for strengthening accountability, both for the Taliban and for the international community’s response.

 

She further warned that normalization of such systems at the international level risks making extreme oppression more broadly acceptable across contexts, particularly when women are excluded from political processes and diplomatic engagement. Amiri also emphasized the importance of movement-building and transnational solidarity, linking the Afghan case to other historical and contemporary struggles against institutionalized systems of domination. She called for broader engagement across regions and movements, including drawing lessons from South Africa’s apartheid history, and underscored the need for global South participation in shaping accountability frameworks. Ultimately, she framed the codification of gender apartheid as essential to ensuring meaningful international response and preventing the normalization of systematic gender-based oppression globally.

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Malalai Habibi described the situation in Afghanistan as “institutionalized and structural,” emphasizing that the rollback of women and girls’ rights has “crushed all aspects of Afghan women’s lives, whether political, social, cultural, or psychological.” She expressed concern that international attention is diminishing, noting that “the international community seems to be moving on from Afghanistan and Afghan women,” despite the continued need for sustained engagement.She highlighted Afghan women’s early and ongoing resistance, including street protests against the Taliban’s return to power and the subsequent crackdown on women’s rights. She referenced severe repression, including “torture, forced disappearances, imprisonment, and other forms of abuse,” while underscoring that Afghan women’s resistance has remained “exemplary and extraordinary.” This resistance, she noted, extends beyond protests to include nonviolent and adaptive strategies such as artistic expression, documentation of abuses, and underground education initiatives, with women continuously finding new ways to sustain their efforts. She stressed that resistance should not be framed through a binary of victimhood versus agency, emphasizing instead the significance of “quiet but persistent acts of resistance” in everyday life, including efforts to access education, stay connected, and maintain networks of solidarity.

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She also addressed coalition-building, noting that discussions about Afghan women are often shaped by “what the international community wants for Afghan women, rather than what Afghan women themselves want.” She called for more collaborative spaces that allow Afghan women to articulate their own demands “in their own terms, without being constrained by donor expectations or external framing.” Finally, she challenged dominant narratives about Afghanistan, arguing that international discourse must move away from imposed framings and instead center Afghan women’s lived experiences. She rejected claims that Taliban policies reflect Afghan culture or religion, describing such explanations as “false narratives,” and emphasized that while patriarchy has long existed, the current system “is not reflective of Afghan society’s true values or aspirations.” She also noted that education has historically been valued across generations of Afghan families despite longstanding structural barriers.

 

Mursel Sabir, policy and human rights practitioner and founder of Afghans Empowered, focused on both emerging progress and persistent challenges in efforts to advance the international recognition and codification of gender apartheid as a legal concept linked to crimes against humanity. She noted that a number of states, including Spain, Mexico, Australia, and the Philippines, alongside approximately 18 countries in various forums, have expressed some level of recognition that women and girls in Afghanistan are facing systematic and structural discrimination, even if not all use the term “gender apartheid.” She highlighted Spain as a particularly strong example of progress, pointing to its support for Afghan women’s rights, institutional engagement within its foreign ministry, and concrete actions such as evacuation and resettlement support for Afghan girls, including survivors of attacks in Dasht-e-Barchi. She emphasized the central role of Afghan diaspora and youth mobilization in shaping such policy developments. At the same time, she underscored significant contradictions between symbolic recognition and state practice. While some countries acknowledge systemic oppression in Afghanistan, restrictive migration and asylum policies in the UK, US, and parts of Europe continue to limit safe pathways for Afghan women and girls, undermining meaningful protection.

 

She also pointed to the risk of normalization through political engagement with the Taliban, noting that some European states are exploring or maintaining channels of engagement, including discussions around repatriation, which she argued may weaken accountability and directly affect Afghan asylum seekers. Finally, Sabir emphasized the importance of strengthening transnational solidarity and movement-building across regions and struggles. She highlighted the role of Afghan diaspora communities globally and called for deeper coordination across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. She also pointed to broader connections with global justice movements, including South Africa’s work on apartheid definitions and solidarity with Palestine, arguing that progress on gender apartheid requires not only legal recognition but also sustained, coordinated, and operational forms of global solidarity that move beyond symbolism toward practical accountability and protection mechanisms.

 

Tahmina Sobat, PhD candidate in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota, brought a transnational feminist and decolonial perspective to the discussion. Drawing on lessons from the South African anti-apartheid struggle, she examined the risks of codification efforts that fail to center the most impacted communities, and raised questions about how international legal frameworks, long used as instruments of colonial power, can be reimagined in ways that advance justice rather than replicate existing hierarchies.

 

A central theme of her remarks was the gap between international advocacy discourse and the lived realities of Afghan women. She argued that a key concern is “the distance between the language of advocacy in international advocacy spaces… and the lived realities” of women inside Afghanistan. She situated these concerns within a broader critique of international law, describing it as “not a neutral instrument” shaped by colonial histories, imperial power, and selective enforcement. From this perspective, she cautioned against framings that isolate the Taliban as the sole source of violence while obscuring wider structural forces, including historical intervention, geopolitical decision-making, and systems of inequality.

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Another key point was the disillusionment of many Afghans with international institutions, though she stressed that this does not constitute rejection of international law itself. Rather, it reflects an understanding of the “fragility of law as a site of transformative intervention.” Her interlocutors viewed codification not as an end in itself, but as one possible tool among many, warning against overreliance on legal recognition and the risk of cycles of “false hope” and disappointment. Drawing on South African experiences, Sobat emphasized that apartheid was dismantled not through legal recognition alone but through mass mobilization, unionization, and sustained political struggle. She argued that legal frameworks are most effective when embedded within broader movements addressing structural inequalities such as colonial domination, racial capitalism, and dispossession.

 

She concluded by defining meaningful solidarity as something that extends beyond naming or legal frameworks, requiring “spaces for dialogue on difficult questions,” engagement with power relations, and co-authorship across movements. She emphasized transnational feminist solidarity, including connections between Afghan, South African, and Palestinian struggles, and described solidarity work as inherently “messy,” involving sustained collective action that goes beyond what international law alone can achieve.