Inside Geneva: what justice means for women in Afghanistan

In August 2021, the Taliban took back control in Afghanistan. Women face unprecedented repression. 

They can’t go to school or work; public parks are banned to them; they are not allowed to speak or sing too loudly. Are we turning away?

“This is the time for the international community and for other countries, especially the EU, to step in and to make sure they respond to the crisis in Afghanistan and stand with the women of Afghanistan and to do everything they can to protect their rights,” says Fereshta Abbasi, from Human Rights Watch.

Diplomats in Geneva have backed a powerful UN fact-finding mission for Afghanistan.

“As an ambassador, and as a woman, [I know that] women have fought for decades if not centuries for their rights, and I also personally do not want to see a back-peddling on those rights that we, and generations of brave women before us, have fought for for so long,” says Deike Potzel, EU Ambassador to the UN in Geneva. 

Women inside Afghanistan need to know there is support.

“Women and girls in Afghanistan resist in ways that don’t form a single movement. It’s about 1,000 quiet and important uprisings and day-to-day revolutions: a resistance that is fierce and creative to show that they exist and that they will never accept that kind of domination,” says Sahar Fetrat, an Afghan campaigner for women’s rights.

The fact-finding mission can gather evidence and hold Afghanistan’s government and individual Taliban leaders to account. But ordinary women across Europe can help too.

“Here in Europe, in Geneva, we have the wonderful opportunity to actually make our voices heard and to be heard. So use that chance, get engaged. Open your eyes and then do something,” says Potzel. 

Join some inspiring women talking to Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva.

Get in touch!

• Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch
• Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en

Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter. 

For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

Transcript

Framing A Hidden Crisis

SPEAKER_08 0:58

This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, Imogen Folkes, and this is a production from SwissInfo, the international public media company of Switzerland. In today's program.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

The Taliban took power three and a half years ago. The rules they first imposed still stand. Girls over 12 can't go to school. And women are banned from many government jobs and from playing sports.

SPEAKER_05 1:27

This is time for the international community, for other countries, especially the EU, to step in and to make sure that they are responding to the crisis in Afghanistan and they are standing with women of Afghanistan and to do anything they can to protect their rights.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Concerns are growing over new Taliban laws banning women's voices and bare faces in public in Afghanistan. UN officials say the rules extend the quote already intolerable restrictions on the rights of women and girls.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

As an ambassador and as a woman, women have fought for decades, if not centuries, for their rights. And that I also personally do not want to see a backpedaling on those rights that we have fought for for so long, that uh brave women before us have fought for so long.

SPEAKER_06 2:14

Women are also banned from working in most sectors outside the home and are prohibited from places like gyms, parks, and salons.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

Women and girls in Afghanistan resist in ways that are not shaping one movement. It's about thousand quiet and important uprisings or revolutions day to day to lead a kind of resistance that is fierce, that is creative, to show that they exist and that they will never accept that kind of domination.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

We here in Europe, in Geneva, we have the wonderful opportunity to actually make our voices heard and to be heard. So use that chance, get engaged. So open your eyes and then do something.

SPEAKER_08 3:21

Because as our attention with good reason perhaps focuses on Ukraine or the ongoing misery in Gaza or Sudan, are we neglecting a really serious human rights crisis, one in which women are being suppressed to an unprecedented degree?

SPEAKER_04 3:39

Girls are banned from attending school beyond the sixth grade, and universities are off limits. This makes Afghanistan the only country with such harsh educational restrictions. Despite promises to reopen schools under Islamic Sharia laws, no steps have been taken to reintegrate women into educational institutions.

SPEAKER_08 3:56

When the Taliban returned to power in 2021, I remember some people saying, well, this is a different Taliban. Perhaps we should give them a chance. This could be different. And anyway, the last Afghan government, propped up by the West, wasn't exactly great. But even then Afghan women were warning us, and now they have every right to say, we told you so. We'll be hearing from two Afghan women, both of them human rights defenders, in this program.

SPEAKER_05 4:30

This is Fareshta Abbosi, and I am the Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch. I feel that if there is one place in this world that needs me the most is Afghanistan, and I am committed to be working on that, and I am hopeful that I will be able to go back and work from Afghanistan one day.

SPEAKER_03 4:46

My name is Sahar Fatrat. I'm a feminist from Afghanistan. I grew up in Kabul, and I think that was the most important time of my life, going to school and university as well. I remember having a lot of hopes for the future, believing in education, knowing that education will change the trajectory of my life. And it did, it really did. And looking back, I feel very lucky.

SPEAKER_08 5:16

And from the European Union ambassador to the UN in Geneva, who is working hard to mobilize support for women in Afghanistan.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

This is really a flagrant violation of human rights, basic human rights. Hearing that women are not allowed to work, that they are not allowed to go outside on their own, that they have to completely cover up, that their voice is not, or that they are not allowed to use their voice outside the house, that they are deprived of education. It's just so appalling and so shocking that I think the international community has all the facts on the table to say this is not acceptable at all.

Voices From Exile And At Home

SPEAKER_08 5:58

Let's hear first from Fareshta Abazi of Human Rights Watch and Sahar Fetrat, both from Afghanistan, both now living in exile, both tireless in their determination to defend women's rights. But what they are hearing now from women still inside Afghanistan is, Fareshta says, chilling.

SPEAKER_05 6:20

Afghanistan has become the worst women's rights crisis in the world. In 2026, Afghanistan remains to be the only country in the world where its women and girls do not have access to secondary and higher education. Women face severe restrictions, accessing employment. Women do not have the right to freedom of movement, freedom of expression, freedom of um assembly. And this is something that we have been Afghan women have been warning about since 2021 and the Taliban takeover.

SPEAKER_08 6:51

Of course, you're from Afghanistan yourself, but you you live in Britain now. Still you have friends, I'm sure, relatives. What are they telling you right now?

SPEAKER_05 7:01

There is an atmosphere of disappointment back home. It's the picture that I get from Afghanistan is very dark. People are really disappointed, very depressed. No one believes that things will get better under the Taleman rule. And that's very sad.

SPEAKER_08 7:18

And Sahar adds, it's all the more dismaying because Afghan women themselves knew what was coming.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

Afghan women had that experience from the past. Even if we didn't live through it, uh ourselves, our mothers, our aunts, our all the women in our communities lived through that and they knew what it meant to live under a system of total male domination, Taliban domination, and female suppression and oppression. So they did not hear Afghan women despite all the advocacy, despite all the activism. And uh now people who are paying that cost day to day are Afghan women and girls. And they keep telling me that they live in a country that feels like an open prison that is getting tighter and more suffocating day by day. A system of total domination in every way possible. They tell me about how difficult it is to wake up every morning and to imagine a future, imagine a life, imagine being alive and living that day to day. A lot of young girls tell me that they wake up every day by habit, trying to get ready for school, and they face day-to-day that sad reality that they can't because just because they're girls, they cannot go. So they face this every single day that because they are girls or women, they are treated as less, their existence is in a way illegitimate.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

The Taliban have shut beauty salons where women could meet and work. And there have been more rules telling women how to dress in public, including fully covering their faces.

Daily Reality Of A Total Ban

SPEAKER_08 9:07

What does it feel like to feel your very existence is, as Sahar puts it, illegitimate? For me, for many of you listening, I guess, it's almost impossible to imagine such oppression. The very things that define our lives school, work, sport, music, even just walking in a park, are now, for Afghan women, forbidden. But in Europe at least, there is a will to try to help. In October last year, at the urging of the European Union, the UN Human Rights Council approved a fact-finding mission for Afghanistan. Daiker Potzel is the EU ambassador in Geneva.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

The crucial issue really was accountability and really the strong urge to have a better accountability mechanism. Because those who perpetrate the crimes, they need to be held responsible. And this is actually the driving motive for us to have this mechanism in place.

SPEAKER_07 10:10

So is it up and running?

SPEAKER_08 10:12

What's it doing if it is, and is it funded?

SPEAKER_02 10:14

It's not up and running yet. You ask a very crucial question, and that's the funding. Uh, and the High Commissioner will tell you that this is really the question. And we are looking into that. And of course, we hope for a lot of support by other member states as well, because this decision to establish this mechanism was made in consensus. So everybody agreed. And so we hope, of course, that more countries will come up with money to actually finance it.

SPEAKER_08 10:40

We see one traditionally particularly large contributor to UN human rights and other UN work, that is the United States pulling away their recent announcement of this$2 billion, it specifically rules out Afghanistan. What do you think about that? I mean, you know, the US was militarily so present in Afghanistan for so long. How do you judge that particular stance?

SPEAKER_02 11:07

Now, we shouldn't uh sort of mingle or confuse the different areas. So the two billion are on humanitarian assistance, and we hear that the US is now coming back with even more. So that is a very good sign. On the other hand, yes, you're very right, they withdrew from the Human Rights Council. And for us, this is still a very, very important instrument that we have. We are very committed to defending human rights and the uh Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So as the EU, also with regards to Afghanistan, we stay engaged, right? So we still have a mission there, a diplomatic mission. No other European country has that, but the EU is there, which helps us to really be on the ground, understand what people need, and also, of course, oversee the project. So we want to do what we can do.

SPEAKER_08 11:56

But as we heard there, the fact-finding mission is not up and running yet. It's not funded. And we know UN Human Rights, like the rest of the UN, is suffering a huge cash crisis. Fareshta Abazi of Human Rights Watch worked tirelessly to get the mechanism created and celebrated its agreement last October. She remains hopeful about what it can achieve.

SPEAKER_05 12:21

It's definitely an investment for the future of Afghanistan. Um, it's an investment for accountability. On October 6, 2025, the culture of impunity was broken in Afghanistan, which means that this mechanism will be able to investigate human rights abuses and to identify perpetrators, something that no other institution has done for Afghanistan for decades. But I also believe that this could have an important deterrent effect on the ground. For example, as we know that the rules are not being implemented in a unified way all over the country. There are some spaces in some provinces of Afghanistan, and we're hoping that this mechanism, the fact that this mechanism will document and will identify individual criminal responsibility for the Taliban leaders and their authorities in different provinces, will give them a pause for second thought before implementing these abusive uh policies, especially against women and girls.

EU Push For Accountability

SPEAKER_08 13:20

How do you think the international climate is, though, now for drawing attention to a situation like this? Afghanistan does seem to have slipped down the agenda. We have in the United States an administration which is removing references to gender and diversity from any humanitarian programs it supports, and has said it won't support any anyway for Afghanistan.

SPEAKER_05 13:48

Does that make your task more difficult? It's very unfortunate to hear that, but also to really think what impact can that have on the ground for people's daily lives. So since the USAICAT and Afghanistan, at least 400 um health facilities have been closed. So it definitely makes it more difficult for us. But I also hope that this is time for the international community, for other countries, especially the EU, to step in and to make sure that they are responding to the crisis in Afghanistan and they are standing with uh with women of Afghanistan and to do anything they can to protect their rights. One of the reasons that the Afghan civil society believed that this is needed for Afghanistan was because of the culture of impunity that had been ongoing in the country for decades. There had never been a mechanism that could document abuses and could identify perpetrators. For the past four and a half years, organizations had been reporting about the Taliban coming up with all these abusive laws and restrictions, but who actually the Taliban are, who within the Taliban leadership is responsible for all of these abuses, we didn't have names. So that's why this mechanism is very powerful. It will go after the Taliban authorities, it will go after individuals, and it will identify individual criminal responsibilities. It sends a strong message back to the Taliban in Afghanistan that even their leadership can no longer protect them.

SPEAKER_08 15:14

And Sahar, too, is really hoping for accountability.

SPEAKER_03 15:18

Obviously, I I welcome it like uh other Afghan's. Uh, I think it's important because Afghanistan has been going through decades of uh impunity and lack of accountability. And I think that's the reason why, one of the reasons why we are where we are today. It's really important to collect and safeguard evidence before it's very late. It's important for this mechanism to work towards uh accountability and justice, and to have a gender-responsive and victim-centered approach, and with a scope that goes beyond what's happening now and it looks at different uh crimes committed by different actors.

SPEAKER_08 16:00

What about this term gender apartheid? The EU, although it wants this fact-finding mission to focus particularly on the situation of women, it doesn't want to use this term. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_03 16:14

Well, if um if if people re are really serious about supporting Afron women and understand their struggles and be helpful, they need to understand and learn from the past that they should listen to Afghan women. And to listen to Afghan women uh and to hear them is to acknowledge their demand. And Afghan women have been for years talking about, even in the 90s, have been talking about gender apartheid and the crime of apartheid. When Afghan women are asking for gender apartheid to be recognized as a crime against humanity, it's important because they know that it will have major legal, political, and moral uh implications.

Funding Gaps And Global Will

SPEAKER_08 17:00

Legal, moral, and political implications? How likely is that really, given the current geopolitical climate? I had another question for Ambassador Dyka Potzel. You did say Europe wants to do what it can do. Coming back to the United States again, be honest with me. Have you got a listening ear there about the situation for women in Afghanistan? Because we are seeing the US put a red line through mentions of gender and diversity in nearly all non-governmental organization and UN programs.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

Yeah, we should talk to our American colleagues about all the situation in Afghanistan. And um we still have a good dialogue on those issues. That does not mean that that will reverse their take on certain issues, but it is still possible to have that dialogue, and we of course very much welcome that, and uh, and we use those channels to make our points and to explain how we look at the situation and what we feel needs to be done to hopefully improve that.

SPEAKER_08 18:08

All right, well, just take your ambassador's hat off for a minute. Are you dismayed as a woman that the debate has entered this kind of zone?

SPEAKER_02 18:17

What kind of zone?

SPEAKER_08 18:18

Well, where references to supporting women's rights are basically actively disapproved of by big international powers.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

Well, I keep saying, you know, as an ambassador and as a woman, that women have fought for decades, if not centuries, for their rights. And that I also personally do not want to see a backpedaling on those rights that we have fought for for so long, that uh brave women before us have fought for so long. So I think I'm I try to be very vocal about that, um, also in my private conversations or in my work conversations also with other colleagues, because really it is uh something that's very close to my heart to defend women's rights here, but also of course uh in contexts like Afghanistan. There's no way around it. Yeah, but we have those frank conversations, and you can still have them. And uh as a woman, uh I definitely feel that we have to have them, particularly with proponents of a different view, with men, but uh also with women who um are also part of that conversation of the other take on things. Let me put it like this.

SPEAKER_08 19:34

Right at the beginning, you talked about pushing for the mechanism because you want to ensure accountability. Do you think that's likely? I mean, we see that can take a very long time. But for example, we have the Myanmar case at the ICJ right now. Women have gone there after almost a decade of waiting. Does that does that give you heart?

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Absolutely. And I'm really truly very impressed with what happened in The Hague and that the court proceedings are are ongoing in the case of Myanmar and the Rohingya crisis, of course. And I can see your skepticism, right, um, on the on the Afghanistan mechanism as well. Yet I think it is definitely a sign of hope for victims. It is a possibility also to show perpetrators you are not going unwatched. And particularly something like the Myanmar case now shows, even if you think, you know, it's been 20 years, it's been 10 years, or what have you, there is justice coming. And for people today, for perpetrators today, to understand that this is a possibility is I think already a powerful sign. So not doing it to me is not an option, really. We need instruments that show victims we are with you, and we want you to succeed making your case and to the perpetrators really to show them you are you're being watched and justice will be coming.

Why A Fact-Finding Mission Matters

SPEAKER_08 21:03

Justice will be coming. That's a hopeful thought. But these cases are notorious for how long they take. The brave Rohingya women testifying at the International Court of Justice in the genocide case against Myanmar had to wait almost 10 years. And by the way, our next Inside Geneva, out on March 17th, is all about that case. Will Afghan women have to wait so long? How does Sahar see the future?

SPEAKER_03 21:35

Well, um I often uh want to believe that having hope in the face of oppression is is a form of resistance, and I mostly try to live uh like that. But sometimes it's really uh hard to stay committed to that. Because in reality, right now looking at Afghanistan, I'm really worried about the future uh of my people, and I can't imagine what the country would look like in 10 years, in 15, and in 20 and 30 years. And I think that is something that takes my my sleep away at night and it makes me really anxious. But ultimately I know that you know it's important to have all the international mechanisms and systems in place and advocate for better Afghanistan because Afghanistan is is a collective mess and it's everyone's responsibility. But I also firmly believe that the future of Afghanistan will be shaped by its people. And as women of Afghanistan, I think we've thoroughly understood what oppression is and what it means, and how it's connected to the estate and and the to the Taliban. And I think it's time for Afghan men to understand. That and to understand that if women are oppressed, they are oppressed as well. I think the country will change once that understanding is shared by many many people in Afghanistan. And yeah, the oppressors will not stay there forever. But it's important that we understand what it takes and that it takes a crack, cracks from within to end the oppression. So support from the UN.

SPEAKER_08 23:19

Get that fact-finding mission up and running, please. Support women in Afghanistan so they can perhaps create some of those cracks Sahar talked about. But I imagine many of our listeners are also wondering what they individually can do to help. Ambassador Dyka Potzel has some suggestions, but first she has a message direct to Afghan women and girls.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

I can just say that I deeply admire their resilience and their strength. It's for me very difficult to imagine what it's like to live in those circumstances. And we hear about, you know, growing numbers of suicide by women, and it's so shocking. So I just wish them all the strength in the world. I wish that they have the strength not to give up hope that things might change, and that they get back to a life where they can enjoy all the human rights that we all agreed upon, and that they can live their life and their future, shape their future the way they want by having a decent education, going to university, becoming a doctor, a lawyer, a filmmaker, uh a nurse, whatever they wish their life to be like, wishing them all the very best. And to say, do not think that we have given up on you. We are watching and we are really carefully following what's going on, and we really want to help you. We want to help you, and we do that in the framework that we can, but we are there with you.

SPEAKER_08 24:53

On Inside Geneva, a lot of our listeners are women. Many of them will be asking, what can I do to help? They read about what's happening in Afghanistan, they are angry, upset about it. What could they actually do? I mean, it's just as you, you know, some normal person, teacher, social worker.

Gender Apartheid And Legal Paths

SPEAKER_02 25:14

Yeah, I always keep telling also younger people don't complain, engage. There are so many NGOs active in that field. So if this is really close to your heart, look for one which is close to you and then get engaged. Talk about it, talk about it to family, talk about it to friends, make people aware of what you are concerned about and what the situation is. Write to media outlets. Tell them, you know, I want to read more about this, and I'm appalled by the situation, and I didn't like that report or whatever. So we here in Europe, in Geneva, we have the wonderful opportunity to actually make our voices heard and to be heard. So use that chance, get engaged. So I think there's plenty of opportunity.

SPEAKER_07 25:59

Open your eyes and then do something. Fareshta Abasi is doing something, and she's not giving up.

SPEAKER_08 26:06

She has a message from the women who are still inside Afghanistan, whose hopes are invested in justice. If not now, then in the future.

SPEAKER_05 26:16

Last October, I was um actually approached by one of the female journalists from quite the rural area of Afghanistan, not in one of the big cities. Um, she was living in one of the rural provinces of Afghanistan, and she apparently had watched one of the side events that I had spoken at, talking about the mechanism. I remember that day walking out of the UN building, um, receiving a text message from her saying that she had watched the side event and she had thought about it, and she thinks that this mechanism will really make a change on the ground for women. And I asked her about it. I asked her if she can give us a code because she told me that she is in the country, she doesn't have a voice, and she asked me to speak for women of Afghanistan. And for me, that was quite an emotional moment because she was a journalist, and I mean she gave us an eloquent code about what this mechanism means. She basically said that this mechanism will give hope to the women of Afghanistan. They know that if their stories are being recorded, that the pain that they're going through these days is not erasable and it will be documented somewhere. This will give them hope to survive these days.

SPEAKER_08 27:28

And in fact, you have that quote with you. Why don't you you read it for us? Sure.

SPEAKER_05 27:32

Okay, let's hope it's not gonna make me emotional because every time I read the code, I became emotional. Justice may not come to our lives today, but if our stories are recorded, we have a chance to get justice tomorrow. That's why this mechanism is needed. This will give us hope and strength to endure these difficult days, knowing that we will be able to hold some of the Talmud leaders accountable, that these crimes are not forgettable, and that our suffering is not erased.

SPEAKER_08 28:00

You've waited several years for this fact-finding mission. What are your hopes now? I'm sure you would at some point like to go back to your country. Do you see that? I mean, how do you see the future for Afghanistan in in the next 10 years?

SPEAKER_05 28:15

It's very difficult to answer this question. Imagine if somebody asked this question from me in 2020. I could not see the August 2021 coming like that. But I am still hopeful and I want to go back. I definitely want to go back to Afghanistan. The reason that I still work on the country is because um I feel that if there is one place in this world that needs me the most is Afghanistan. And I am committed to be working on that, and I am hopeful that I will be able to go back and work from Afghanistan one day.

SPEAKER_08 28:52

And that brings us to the end of this edition of Inside Geneva. We hope you enjoyed the podcast and that you were inspired by the courage and determination of Fareshta and Sahar. A reminder that next time on Inside Geneva, we'll be bringing you an in-depth report on the case of genocide against Myanmar currently underway at the International Court of Justice, where women are fighting for justice for women.

SPEAKER_05 29:20

If you were in that court, I can assure you international law is alive and it is fighting very hard.

SPEAKER_08 29:31

That's out on March 17th. Do join us then. A reminder: you've been listening to Inside Geneva, a Swiss Info production. You can subscribe to us and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Check out our previous episodes how the International Red Cross unites prisoners of war with their families, or why survivors of human rights violations turn to the UN in Geneva for justice. I'm Imogen Folks. Thanks again for listening.