Indictment – People’s tribunal for women of afghanistan
This indictment is respectfully submitted to the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) in response to the deliberate, systematic, and institutionalized campaign of gender-based persecution carried out by the Taliban de facto authorities against women and girls in Afghanistan since August 15, 2021.
Drawing upon survivor testimonies, corroborated documentation, and the findings of international bodies, the prosecutorial team submits that the Taliban’s policies of exclusion, repression, and erasure (grounded in misogyny and enforced through mechanisms of state-like control), constitute crimes against humanity under Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute, particularly the crime of gender persecution.
The purpose of this indictment is threefold: (1) to restore visibility and dignity to Afghan women and girls whose rights have been erased and whose voices have been forcibly silenced; (2) to pursue accountability through people’s justice where formal remedies remain absent, slow, inaccessible, or ineffective; and (3) to contribute to the development of jurisprudence on gender persecution and gender apartheid, addressing urgent legal and normative gaps in the global accountability framework.
The acts detailed herein are neither incidental nor the result of temporary cultural or social divergence. They are deliberate, comprehensive, and enforced through systemic violence, surveillance, and threats aimed at erasing the legal personhood, autonomy, and public existence of women and girls in all spheres of life in Afghanistan. They seek to eliminate the presence of women and girls from public, educational, civic, and economic life. These actions breach Afghanistan’s binding obligations under numerous international treaties and represent a coordinated attack on the foundational principles of equality and dignity.
This Peoples’ Tribunal is an opportunity to establish accountability for these violations, as well as a moral reckoning, a platform of conscience and justice (free from political constraints), to document harm, restore truth, and affirm the resilience of Afghan women and girls. Through this Tribunal, the Complainants seek to give shape to lived experiences, break imposed silences, and contribute to the global insistence that gender persecution must be named, confronted, and never normalized. Where official mechanisms have failed to deliver justice, this Tribunal symbolizes a defense of universal rights and the enduring struggle for human dignity. It represents the hope of breaking an imposed silence through collective acknowledgment, while offering an opportunity for recognition, redress, and healing.
