Netwomening participated in the round table “The struggle of Afghan women against gender apartheid: a collective responsibility”, held at Casa Asia (Madrid) on Wednesday, January 28, within the framework of the RAGAA initiative (Raise Against Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan) promoted by FIBGAR and People Help and open to the incorporation of civil society organizations.
Afghan activists, institutional representatives and entities committed to human rights participated in the meeting, and it had a large public attendance, giving rise to a very rich dialogue, with numerous interventions and contributions of great interest.
Gender apartheid as a crime against humanity
The event opened with the intervention of Natasha Arnpriester, Senior Legal Counsel of Open Society Foundations, who warned about the urgency of the international community recognising gender apartheid as a crime against humanity. She also urged that collective responsibility be assumed to guarantee justice and protection for Afghan women.
During the conversation, Khadija Amin, journalist and president of Esperanza de Libertad and member of Netwomening, and the other speakers went deeper into the situation of women and girls under the Taliban regime. They recalled that they are prevented from accessing education and employment, their exclusion from public life to the point of prohibiting them from speaking, and the systematic denial of their fundamental rights. All of them agreed in pointing out that these practices constitute a system of structural domination that must be internationally recognised as gender apartheid.
Khadija Amin emphasised that these crimes are forcing many women to leave Afghanistan and warned about the serious situation of Afghan women in exile, especially in Iran and Pakistan, where their rights are not recognised and they face the risk of being returned and great difficulties in accessing visas. In this context, an Afghan woman from the audience shared that, after an initial rejection, she could only come to Spain by resorting to the judicial route, with the support of Esperanza de Libertad and Netwomening, highlighting the legal barriers that many Afghan women face.
Batol Gholami, founder of AYLA (Assembly of Young Leaders of Afghanistan) and representative of the Association of Afghan Women in Spain (AMAE), emphasised the importance of the leadership, training and networking of Afghan women organised in exile. Alessia Schiavon, director of FIBGAR and coordinator of the RAGAA initiative (Raise Against Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan), addressed the legal and strategic dimension of the recognition of gender apartheid as a crime against humanity and the need for international responses to the serious violations of rights.
The meeting also included the participation of Ana María Alonso Giganto, the Ambassador for Feminist Foreign Policy, who highlighted Spain’s commitment to the defense of women’s rights and the need to place gender equality at the center of foreign action.
A key moment
The holding of this debate coincides with the process being carried out at the United Nations for the drafting of a treaty on crimes against humanity, in which Spain actively participates by supporting the incorporation of a gender perspective.
Netwomening thus reaffirms its commitment to gender equality, international justice and the defense of human rights, supporting initiatives that amplify the voices of Afghan women and girls, who have been intensely persecuted since the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan in August 2021.