Ramaphosa Links Apartheid Legacy to Afghan Crisis
President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the Taliban’s institutionalized mistreatment of women and girls in Afghanistan during his remarks on August 9 at South Africa’s National Women’s Day commemoration.
Yousafzai used the appearance to urge governments to recognize this system for what Afghan women have long called it: gender apartheid.
“South Africans know what it means when the law is used to determine where people may go, what they may learn, what work they may do and what place they may occupy in society,” Ramaphosa told attendees.
The Weight of South Africa’s History
The historical resonance carries particular weight. Drawing on its own experience with apartheid, the country possesses unique credibility when urging the eradication of discriminatory power structures wherever they surface. Highlighting this responsibility, Ramaphosa noted that South Africa has a “duty to stand in solidarity with victims of sexism and gender apartheid, wherever they are.”
The systematic denial of rights to Afghan women and girls by the Taliban—such as barring female students from continuing their education past the sixth grade and heavily curtailing their freedom of movement, employment, and civic involvement—has been documented by Human Rights Watch. According to human rights investigators, these abuses amount to the crime against humanity of gender persecution.
International Accountability and Legal Push
International accountability mechanisms have already begun to respond. The International Criminal Court has issued two arrest warrants for senior Taliban leaders on charges of gender persecution. Meanwhile, United Nations experts and Afghan women’s rights defenders have described the situation as gender apartheid.
Afghan women have spearheaded the movement to secure international legal recognition for gender apartheid—seeking its addition alongside racial apartheid within a prospective international treaty on crimes against humanity. Alongside Afghan women’s rights defenders and various civil society groups, Human Rights Watch has likewise campaigned for this measure.
To date, seven state delegations support the inclusion of gender apartheid as a crime against humanity in the treaty.
Pretoria’s Role in Upcoming Negotiations
Advocates argue that taking this definitive measure would properly commemorate National Women’s Day and honor the 20,000 South African women who protested apartheid pass laws in 1956, recognizing that regulations dictating daily routines and freedom of movement function as tools of oppression.
