Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan has systematically transformed legal institutions into instruments of gender control, using decrees, morality codes and judicial directives to regulate nearly every aspect of women's lives. This marks a fundamental shift from arbitrary repression to institutionalised discrimination, with exclusion codified, administered and enforced through the machinery of the state.
When legal institutions cease to safeguard rights and instead become instruments of exclusion, they do more than restrict individual freedoms; they confer legitimacy, permanence and administrative authority on systems of oppression.
Redefining Citizenship Through Law
Afghanistan’s morality law regulates women's dress, movement and public expression, while restrictions on education and employment limit their ability to acquire skills, earn independent incomes and participate in public institutions. Other measures progressively remove women from public visibility itself, whether by restricting travel, limiting civic participation or narrowing their presence in media, sport and other public spaces.
The cumulative effect is far greater than the loss of individual rights. These measures progressively erase women from Afghanistan's educational, economic and civic life, confining them to the private sphere while making any participation in public life conditional on state permission and male authority. It is this systematic legal segregation that has prompted growing calls to recognise the Taliban's governance model as one of gender apartheid.
Beyond Religion
The Afghan experience also illustrates the risks of attributing legal exclusion solely to religion. Countries that draw on Islamic jurisprudence have followed markedly different legal and social trajectories. The comparison with Saudi Arabia illustrates this distinction. As Saudi Arabia pursued economic diversification under Vision 2030, it expanded women's participation in education, employment and public life. Afghanistan moved in the opposite direction.
The contrast underscores that when political choices are shaped by developmental priorities, religious principles can be interpreted in ways that expand rather than restrict women's participation in public life.
Rethinking International Accountability
The international community has responded to developments in Afghanistan through human rights investigations, United Nations resolutions and, more recently, arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against senior Taliban leaders. These measures have helped document violations and reinforce individual accountability. Yet the challenge extends beyond prosecuting individual acts to recognising a structure of discrimination that is embedded in law and public institutions.
This is why a growing recognition of gender apartheid carries vital significance. It shifts attention from individual violations to the institutional design that produces them, allowing international engagement to focus on dismantling systems of exclusion rather than responding only to their consequences. Such an approach would also provide a more coherent basis for diplomatic engagement, humanitarian assistance and future accountability. It would align international responses with the systemic nature of the challenge rather than treating its consequences in isolation.
The international response to Afghanistan will shape the future of Afghan women and establish important precedents for recognising and challenging legally organised systems of exclusion elsewhere.