RASC News Agency: Richard Bennett, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan, has hailed the issuance of international arrest warrants for senior Taliban leaders as a milestone in the pursuit of justice for Afghanistani women and girls. In a sharply worded statement on Tuesday, July 8, Bennett welcomed the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision, calling it a decisive message against the entrenched impunity of Taliban rulers. The ICC’s arrest warrants for Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s reclusive supreme leader, and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the group’s chief justice, stem from their central roles in orchestrating a regime of gender persecution that has forcibly excluded women from nearly all aspects of public life. These acts, according to the ICC, constitute crimes against humanity.
“This is a serious step forward in ensuring that those responsible for orchestrating systematic violations of human rights particularly against women and girls are not shielded by impunity,” Bennett stated. He further warned that attempts by some states to normalize diplomatic relations with the Taliban amount to a betrayal of international law and a moral failure of global governance. “Governments must not legitimize regimes that deny half of their population basic human dignity,” he said. “Any political engagement that ignores the reality of the Taliban’s gender apartheid is not diplomacy it is complicity.” Bennett’s statement comes amid growing international unease over renewed efforts by some countries to quietly re-establish ties with the Taliban, under the pretext of stability, counterterrorism cooperation, or humanitarian access. These moves, human rights experts warn, risk whitewashing a regime that has built its rule on the eradication of women’s rights, suppression of dissent, and the weaponization of religious law.
Despite being banned by the Taliban from entering Afghanistan, Bennett has continued to play a pivotal role in exposing the group’s oppressive apparatus. Over the past several years, he has authored detailed UN reports documenting the Taliban’s violations, including:
The closure of schools and universities for girls. The forced removal of women from government offices and humanitarian organizations. The criminalization of female mobility without male guardians. Arbitrary detention, intimidation, and public punishment of women who protest or speak out.
These reports have served as foundational evidence for international legal proceedings, including the ICC’s case against Taliban leadership. His work has also been widely cited by international advocacy groups and UN bodies seeking to hold the Taliban accountable. “Richard Bennett has been instrumental in converting suffering into evidence evidence that the international legal system can now act upon,” said a senior researcher at the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).
Human rights advocates are now mobilizing against what they describe as a dangerous trend: the quiet normalization of a regime that has erased women from public life, banned freedom of expression, and established a reign of ideological tyranny under the banner of Islamic law. “Recognizing the Taliban while women are being systematically erased from society is more than diplomatic pragmatism it is a moral stain on the conscience of the international community,” said a regional women’s rights organization in Kabul.
Bennett’s voice joins a growing global chorus calling for sustained international isolation of the Taliban regime until it complies with international human rights norms. He argues that any effort to bring the Taliban into the international fold without accountability sends a chilling signal to authoritarian movements worldwide: that misogyny and repression may be tolerated for the sake of geopolitical convenience.
“We must be clear: normalizing the Taliban is normalizing gender apartheid, religious authoritarianism, and crimes against humanity,” Bennett declared. “To forget this is to abandon the women of Afghanistan.” The international community now stands at a crossroads. It must choose between a principled defense of human rights or an opportunistic silence that emboldens the very forces that seek to dismantle them. As the ICC acts, and as brave voices like Bennett’s continue to speak out, the world must decide whether justice for Afghanistani women will remain a rhetorical commitment or become a global priority backed by action.
