Apartheid, under international law, refers to systematic inhuman acts committed by one group to dominate and oppress another, creating severe disparities in rights and resources.
While the term originally described racial oppression, it also applies to gender-based institutional discrimination, as experienced by women in Iran and Afghanistan.
Just as racial apartheid in South Africa entrenched white supremacy, gender apartheid in Iran and Afghanistan enshrines male supremacy. These laws systematically deny women the rights and opportunities afforded to men, subjecting them to social, political and economic marginalisation.
Following the 1979 revolution, the first three Islamic parliaments made significant changes to civil laws, including passing an Islamic Penal Code that targeted women’s independence, bodily autonomy and participation in society.
Since 1983, the country’s mandatory dress code has required women to wear the hijab in public. Resistance to this law results in fines, imprisonment and physical abuse, with harsher punishments following the Hijab and Chastity Bill passed last year.
Under current family law, women must obtain a male guardian’s consent to marry for the first time. Men have the unilateral right to divorce, while women must prove extreme grounds and lose custody of their children, with custody transferred to fathers or paternal grandparents.
In inheritance law, daughters inherit half the share of sons. In criminal law, compensation for a woman’s life is half that of a man’s, and in court, the testimony of two women equals that of one man. The list of systematic laws discriminating against women in Iran extends far beyond these examples.
This ruling system is worlds apart from the country’s progressive and resilient women, who continue to demand the freedoms they deserve, despite the heavy chains of oppression.
Once again, Afghan women are being erased, fading from public life.
Since taking power in 2021, the Taliban has dismantled Afghanistan’s constitution and implemented a system of gender apartheid. For over three years, women have been deprived of their basic rights, including access to education, work, free speech and assembly, while access to justice and healthcare is severely restricted.
To enforce their decrees, the Taliban re-established the Ministry of Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice. Women are arbitrarily detained and tortured for not following the Taliban’s dress code and for protesting.
In August, through the Ministry of Justice, the Taliban issued a new law, the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, introducing oppressive measures against women. Article 13 requires women to cover their entire body when leaving home, including their face, and their voices must not be heard in public. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights denounced this law for silencing women and depriving them of autonomy.
No more walks in the sun. No voice to raise. No dreams. No hope. It is a life impossible to fathom.
Regimes in both Iran and Afghanistan have demonstrated extreme, brutal rigidity in resisting gender equality in any form. It is therefore vital for the international community to urgently recognise and oppose these women’s rights violations.
In defiance of the threats they face, a coalition of Iranian and Afghan women leaders launched the End Gender Apartheid campaign, seeking to have "gender apartheid" recognised as a crime against humanity. This classification would enable the international community to hold perpetrators accountable for violations of women’s rights wherever they occur.
On September 17, a panel of legal experts and women’s rights activists from Iran and Afghanistan participated in a discussion organised by the Iranian Solidarity Group New Zealand, held at New Zealand’s Parliament on the second anniversary of Mahsa Jina Amini’s killing for not wearing her hijab properly.
The discussion explored the systematic oppression of women in Iran and Afghanistan, and the goals and significance of the End Gender Apartheid campaign. It ultimately suggested that expanding the definition of apartheid to include gender would strengthen global legal frameworks, enabling more effective international intervention, sanctions, and support for oppressed gender groups.
The institutionalised policies that deprive women of their rights in Iran and Afghanistan can only be described as "gender apartheid". While fears of cultural conflicts or enforcement difficulties discourage governments from actively supporting the expansion of apartheid’s legal definition, justice for millions of women requires confronting these obstacles head-on.
New Zealand can begin by immediately joining United Nations member states who support the inclusion of gender apartheid as a crime against humanity at the upcoming United Nations General Assembly debate this month.
Its stance should then be reinforced with targeted sanctions and diplomatic efforts to build an international coalition addressing gender apartheid.
Gender justice must be at the heart of our foreign policy, as New Zealand champions equality and human rights on the global stage.
— Hanna Habibi and Azadah Raz Mohamad took part in a Gender Apartheid in Iran and Afghanistan held at Parliament recently.
