The following article was published in the March 2026 special issue of the International Review of Contemporary Law, the journal of the IADL, marking International Women’s Day.
March 8 in the Age of Imperialist Wars, Genocide, and Gender Apartheid
Şerife Ceren Uysal
March 8 is not merely a commemorative date marked on the calendar in many parts of the world. It carries the historical memory of women’s long struggle for equality, freedom, and human dignity—a struggle that has often demanded immense sacrifices. For this very reason, beyond its character as a celebration or a moment of remembrance, what must be foregrounded is its militant essence. Emerging from the struggles of working-class women in the early twentieth century for better labor and living conditions, this day has acquired different meanings across different geographies over time. Yet at its core it continues to keep alive the same political question: how can the power relations that shape women’s lives be transformed? Women’s struggles against the exploitation of labor, against wars, authoritarian regimes, and patriarchal structures share a common historical trajectory, and March 8 remains one of the rare moments when this trajectory becomes visible. It is therefore not only a day to recall past achievements but also an opportunity to confront the inequalities, forms of domination, and injustices that continue to structure the present.
Today, although the challenges faced by women around the world take different forms, patriarchal power relations and social inequalities persist across societies with varying intensity. In many countries, women’s positions in education, employment, political representation, and public life remain fragile and unequal. In some regions, however, oppression against women cannot be described merely as inequality; it takes the form of a systematic, institutionalized, and ideological regime of exclusion. Afghanistan today represents one of the most striking examples of such a condition. For this reason, in preparing this issue we approached March 8 not simply as a symbolic day of struggle, but as an opportunity to shed light on the structural forms of oppression confronting women in different parts of the world.
Gender Apartheid under Taliban Rule
Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, women and girls have been systematically excluded from nearly all spheres of public life. Access to secondary and higher education has been banned, women’s participation in the workforce has been largely prevented, their presence in public spaces has been severely restricted, and their freedom of movement has been tightly controlled through regulations such as the requirement of male guardianship. Across a wide range of areas – from access to healthcare to the functioning of justice mechanisms – women’s rights have been effectively dismantled. These measures are not isolated discriminatory policies; they form part of a comprehensive governing system designed to systematically erase women’s presence in society.
Many Afghan women, human rights defenders, and international legal scholars increasingly describe this system through the concept of “gender apartheid.” The concept points not only to violations of individual rights but to the systematic segregation and exclusion of a group that constitutes half of society from public life. Historically, apartheid was developed to describe racial segregation, yet in Afghanistan the regime imposed upon women is increasingly understood as a gendered form of apartheid. The debate surrounding this concept is not merely academic. It raises urgent questions about the capacity of international law to confront and respond to regimes built upon systematic gender-based domination.
Our decision to focus this issue on Afghanistan is not based solely on the severity of the violations occurring there. The situation in Afghanistan also compels us to interrogate the contradictions embedded within the international community’s discourse on women’s rights. Although the rhetoric of defending women’s rights is frequently invoked in global politics, it is often sidelined in the face of geopolitical interests and power calculations. The limited response of the international community to the systematic erasure of women from public life under Taliban rule reveals this contradiction with striking clarity. Afghanistan thus represents not only a profound human rights crisis but also a revealing illustration of the limitations of both international law and international politics.
Seeking Justice: The Peoples’ Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan
In this context, a number of initiatives have emerged in recent years to make the experiences of Afghan women visible and to examine these violations within legal and political frameworks. One such initiative is the Peoples’ Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan, convened under the auspices of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal. Although not a formal international court, the tribunal sought to bring together women’s testimonies, expert analyses, and documentary evidence in order to assess the systematic oppression faced by women under Taliban rule. In doing so, it created a forum in which the voices of survivors could be heard and documented at a moment when existing international mechanisms remain slow, constrained, or politically blocked. The initiative thus represents an important example of how civil society and victims themselves can generate spaces of accountability when formal institutions fail to respond.
The contributions included in this issue examine both the tribunal process and the broader situation of women in Afghanistan from multiple perspectives. The article on the historical and institutional origins of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal provides the theoretical foundation of the issue by exploring the place of people’s tribunals within international law and the broader search for justice. The article by Rawadari offers a detailed account of the emergence of the Peoples’ Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan, tracing how Afghan civil society organizations initiated the process and how the tribunal developed from its early conception to the issuance of its judgment.
Reflecting the perspective of the prosecutorial team, the article by Azadah Raz Mohammad analyzes how the tribunal’s legal framework was constructed and how the policies and practices of the Taliban have been assessed within the framework of international criminal law. It also examines the methodological and ethical dimensions of the process, including witness selection, evidence collection, and the protection of survivors’ security. Rashida Manjoo’s contribution evaluates the tribunal’s judgment from the standpoint of international law, exploring what debates surrounding gender persecution and gender apartheid mean for international accountability mechanisms. Ghizal Haress’s article addresses the epistemic and political significance of the tribunal by examining how Afghan women’s testimonies generate visibility and knowledge within the international sphere.
Alongside these legal and academic discussions, the testimony included at the end of this issue recounts, in the words of an Afghan woman herself, the realities of everyday life under Taliban rule. The testimony powerfully illustrates the human experience that lies behind legal categories and political debates. By describing how women’s freedom of movement is tightly controlled—and how even a simple journey becomes subject to humiliating surveillance—it reveals the everyday functioning of the gender apartheid regime imposed upon Afghan women.
Finally, the statements issued by the judges of the People’s Tribunal containing their preliminary findings are significant in that they underscore, in essence, the responsibilities of the international community as a whole.
A World Marked by War, Genocide, and Impunity
The publication of this issue also coincides with an exceptionally turbulent moment in world politics. We enter March 8 at a time when imperialist wars are intensifying, global power rivalries are deepening, and international law is openly violated in multiple regions. The genocide continuing in Palestine – particularly in Gaza – has provoked profound moral and political reactions across the world. The systematic targeting of civilians, the destruction of entire cities, and the dismantling of the most basic conditions necessary for life have led broader segments of the global public to question the capacity of the international system to protect human rights – questions whose answers many of us have long understood.
In this context, it is no longer possible to ignore the connections between the gender apartheid regime imposed on women in Afghanistan and the grave human rights violations, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocides unfolding in other parts of the world. Historically, the struggle for women’s freedom has always been intertwined with struggles against war, militarism, and imperialist intervention. The forms of oppression shaping women’s lives are produced not only by patriarchal structures but also by wars, occupations, and authoritarian regimes. For this reason, the struggle for women’s rights cannot be separated from the broader political and historical contexts in which these forms of domination emerge.
The struggle carried out by Afghan women today reminds us of this reality once again. The systematic exclusion of women from public life under Taliban rule is not merely a local issue; it is a global question of justice. Moreover, the historical trajectory that has shaped Afghanistan—including the rise of the Taliban itself—has been profoundly influenced by decades of imperial intervention. States that devastated countries under the claim of exporting freedom—most prominently the United States and its allies—bear fundamental responsibility for the conditions that Afghanistan and similar regions face today. Imperial interventions that shattered societies, dismantled institutions, and militarized everyday life did not bring liberation; they produced new cycles of violence and domination whose consequences continue to unfold. This reality exposes the deep contradictions between the international community’s rhetoric on women’s rights and its political practice. Discourses circulated in the name of women’s freedom are too often applied selectively and rendered ineffective under the shadow of geopolitical interests.
2026 March 8: Against Imperialism, War, Genocide and Gender Apartheid
As we approach March 8, the gender apartheid regime in Afghanistan offers an urgent reminder: the struggle for women’s freedom cannot be sustained through fragmented or selective solidarity. It forms part of a broader struggle for justice against war, genocide, and imperial domination. Opposing the systematic erasure of women from public life and opposing the mass violence inflicted upon civilian populations arise from the same ethical and political ground.
For this reason, the purpose of this issue is not merely to document the situation of women in Afghanistan. It is also to reaffirm that the struggle for women’s freedom is inseparable from the broader pursuit of global justice. Amplifying the voices of Afghan women, making their experiences visible, and expanding the legal and political debates surrounding the concept of gender apartheid are efforts fully consistent with the historical meaning of March 8 itself. The struggle for equality and freedom is not confined to particular geographies; struggles unfolding in different parts of the world form interconnected parts of a shared historical process.
It is precisely at this point that the historical legacy of March 8 reveals its full meaning. March 8 reminds us that women’s emancipation has never been granted from above; it has always been won through struggle, solidarity, and resistance. In a world marked by war, imperial domination, and deepening inequalities, this legacy calls for more than remembrance. It calls for renewed political commitment. The voices of Afghan women—speaking against erasure, repression, and silence—form part of a global struggle that refuses to accept injustice as inevitable. Listening to those voices, amplifying them, and situating them within a broader movement for justice remains one of the most urgent tasks of our time.
Şerife Ceren Uysal
Ceren is a human rights lawyer with a background in criminal and international law. She previously practiced law in Istanbul, where her work focused on the criminalization of freedom of expression and the misuse of anti-terror legislation. She moved to Vienna in 2016 and worked as a guest researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Human Rights.
Since 2015, Ceren has been a member of the Executive Board of the Progressive Lawyers’ Association of Turkey. She currently serves as Co-Secretary General of the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights (ELDH) and a Bureau Member of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL).
She is the International Legal Advisor of PEN Norway, with a particular focus on the protection of freedom of expression and media freedom in Turkey, the Philippines, Tunisia, and Pakistan.
All articles published in the International Review of Contemporary Law reflect only the position of their author and not the position of the journal, nor of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers.