On July 31, 2025, four Afghan civil society organisations launched the People’s Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan before the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) to address the systematic human rights abuses faced by women and girls since the Taliban’s return to power on August 15, 2021. This marks one of the first substantive steps by Afghan civil society organizations and human rights groups to seek justice and accountability.
The announcement comes ahead of the fourth anniversary of the Taliban’s violent regime. The primary objective of the tribunal is to empower and bring hope to the people of Afghanistan, particularly women, to exercise agency, and act in defence of their rights. At the same time, the initiative seeks to build relationships, foster dialogue, and engage with a panel of judges from around the world to ensure that the voices demanding accountability are heard.
This historic, citizen-led tribunal is an initiative similar to the People’s Tribunal on Myanmar and the ongoing Gaza Tribunal by serving as a semi-legal platform that can hear testimonies, gather evidence, and deliver findings related to the alleged ongoing atrocities committed by the Taliban. By framing the Taliban’s actions as crimes against humanity of gender persecution, it also has two key objectives: firstly, to draw international attention to the unprecedented gender-based oppression ongoing under Taliban rule; and secondly, to provide Afghan women with a space to share their stories of both persecution and resistance.
Although the tribunal is not a formal legal body, it plays an important legal, political, and moral role in documenting the abuses and drawing attention to the Taliban’s unprecedented international crime of gender-based persecution and maintaining public pressure on the international community not to normalise such abuses. Therefore, through public hearings, victim-survivor testimonies, and legal analysis, the tribunal aims to build a comprehensive record of the Taliban’s gender-based persecution that might otherwise remain ignored or underreported.
Equally important, the People’s Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan could play a critical role in reinforcing the international community’s position of non-recognition of the Taliban by providing credible documentation of widespread and systematic human rights violations, particularly those targeting women and girls. Its findings can underscore the Taliban’s failure to meet the basic standards of legitimate governance under international law. Furthermore, the findings of the tribunal could strengthen the legal and moral imperative for states to refrain from forcibly returning Afghan refugees, who face a credible risk of persecution under the Taliban rule.
The work of the tribunal carries weight far beyond symbolism. The findings of the Tribunal could create a credible and accessible record of abuses that can inform future legal proceedings at the International Criminal Court (ICC) or national jurisdictions under the principle of universal jurisdiction, and Afghanistan’s courts in a post-Taliban era. At the same time, the findings of the Tribunal could guide policy responses beyond the non-recognition of the Taliban to include options such as targeted sanctions.
Similarly, the Tribunal aims to provide the women and girls of Afghanistan, a group long denied justice and whose voices are often silenced, with a platform to seek justice and accountability, and expose the abuses they have endured under the Taliban rule. Some of these violations include the prohibition of girls from accessing secondary and higher education, the exclusion of women from employment in most public and private sectors, severe restrictions on women’s freedom of movement without a male guardian, and the arbitrary arrest and detention of women under vague moral pretexts. Such practices are not isolated or incidental, but form part of the Taliban’s deliberate policy framework aimed at erasing women from public life. Taking a victim-centric approach, the Tribunal for the Women of Afghanistan offers a space where their sufferings are acknowledged and their demands for justice and dignity are heard on a global stage.
Thus, the tribunal is more than an act of witnessing; it is a form of resistance, documentation and advocacy for the women of Afghanistan. It reclaims a space for them to speak for themselves, to narrate their stories of both persecution and resistance. In doing so, it not only highlights their suffering but also their protest, resilience, strength, and leadership. It creates a counter-narrative to the Taliban’s propaganda and the global apathy that has allowed the Taliban’s crimes to persist largely unchecked.
At the same time, while international accountability mechanisms such as the ICC inherently move slowly, the tribunal could complement their work by collecting evidence and framing the Taliban’s atrocities under the crimes against humanity of gender persecution and bringing legal clarity to the emerging concepts such as gender apartheid.
Ultimately, the People’s Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan aims to serve as a moral and legal way to remind the international community not to look away from the sufferings of the women and girls in Afghanistan. In an era of geopolitical fatigue and media silence, the tribunal refuses to let Taliban atrocities go undocumented, unchallenged and unpunished.
To conclude, the People’s Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan is an important initiative that could assist in bringing international attention to the Taliban’s systematic and institutionalized gender-based persecution. The findings of the tribunal create credible documentation of the atrocities committed by the Taliban that could inform legal action, shape international policy, and support future accountability efforts by bearing witness and demanding justice. The initiative offers the opportunity to be a force of truth, dignity, and hope for the women of Afghanistan.
Azadah Raz Mohammad is a Jurist from Afghanistan and one of the prosecutors of the People’s Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan.
