Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan are committing a crime against humanity with their treatment of women and girls and has called for an international investigation to "provide a path toward accountability."
Since ousting the Western-backed Afghan government and taking over the country in August 2021, the Taliban has placed restrictions on women's appearance, freedom of movement, right to work and study, and access to society.
HRW said in a report issued on September 8 that while men in Afghanistan have also been subject to "serious violations" of their human rights, the underlying discrimination against women is evident from the "all-encompassing restrictions targeting women."
According to the rights group, the Taliban's "widespread and systematic attack against women" constitutes "a crime against humanity of persecution targeting women and girls." An International Criminal Court investigation is needed as it "could provide a path toward accountability for the crime against humanity of gender persecution," it added.
"The Taliban's cruel and methodical denial of the basic rights of women and girls to remove them from public life has received global attention," Elizabeth Evenson, international justice director at HRW, said in the report.
"Coordinated support by concerned governments is needed to bring the Taliban leaders responsible to justice," she added.
Afghan women are banned from secondary and higher education and are only permitted to work in a limited number of jobs. They also are not allowed to travel away from their homes without being accompanied by a male relative. With respect to dress codes, women must cover themselves almost completely or face severe punishment.
The HRW report noted that women and some men who have protested against the Taliban policies violating women's rights have frequently been detained and sometimes tortured.
Two years since it overran the country and ousted the Western-backed Afghan government, the hard-line Taliban has failed to live up to promises of moderation and has instead severely curbed women's freedoms, waged a brutal crackdown on dissent, and reintroduced the militants' brutal form of justice.
In a July report, UN experts said he situation of girls and women in Afghanistan was the worst in the world and added that systematic restrictions on women and girls could amount to "gender apartheid."