GENEVA — The Taliban’s oppression requires sustained and principled international pressure, Richard Bennett, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, told the U.N. Human Rights Council on Thursday, warning that the Taliban’s rights violations are becoming more entrenched and systematic.
Speaking at the 58th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Bennett urged the international community to take stronger action against the Taliban’s expanding repression of women, ethnic and religious minorities, and civil society. He also called for clear human rights benchmarks for engagement with the Taliban and stressed that there should be no normalization of the Taliban’s rule unless there are measurable and independently verified improvements in human rights.
“The lack of a strong unified response from the international community has already emboldened the Taliban,” Bennett said. “We owe it to the people of Afghanistan not to embolden them still further through continued inaction. We must not allow history to repeat itself.”
Taliban’s gender-based persecution may constitute crimes against humanity
Bennett called for gender apartheid to be recognized as an international crime, welcoming progress toward the Crimes Against Humanity Treaty but urging that more must be done to hold perpetrators accountable.
“The Taliban’s institutionalized system of gender-based oppression constitutes a widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population of Afghanistan and may constitute crimes against humanity, including gender persecution,” he said.
He cited the Taliban’s Vice and Virtue Law, a set of regulations that codify and expand the group’s discriminatory policies, as further evidence that gender persecution is not incidental but rather a planned and orchestrated policy at the highest levels of Taliban leadership.
Bennett emphasized that the Taliban’s policies are not remnants of the past but a continuation of their first period of rule in the 1990s, contradicting claims that the group has moderated its approach.
“The Vice and Virtue Law is not an endpoint but an indicator of further restrictions to come,” he warned.
Humanitarian crisis worsens
Beyond gender-based oppression, Bennett highlighted Afghanistan’s deepening humanitarian crisis, where 23 million people—nearly half the population—are in need of humanitarian assistance. The situation has been worsened by pauses and cuts in international aid, further compounding food insecurity and economic hardship.
He also warned of the Taliban’s increasing restrictions on essential services, including their recent ban on women from studying in medical institutes—a move that will severely impact access to healthcare, particularly for women and girls.
Additionally, the Taliban prohibited the construction of buildings with windows overlooking spaces used by women, echoing similar measures imposed during their first regime in the late 1990s.
Bennett noted that these restrictions are part of a broader pattern of social control, reinforcing a climate of fear and self-censorship.
Targeting of minorities and journalists
Bennett expressed deep concern over escalating violence against ethnic and religious minorities, particularly Hazaras, who have been targeted in deadly attacks. He cited two recent incidents:
The killing of 14 Hazara men in Daikundi Province in September.
The murder of 10 Sufi worshippers in Baghlan Province in November, an attack claimed by ISIS-K.
He called for independent and impartial investigations into these killings, warning that Afghanistan’s history of ethnic and religious violence is at risk of repeating itself.
Bennett also pointed to the continued targeting of journalists, educators, and former government officials, including reports of reprisals against ex-prosecutors and security personnel.
Use of corporal punishment escalates
Another major concern highlighted in Bennett’s report was the sharp rise in corporal punishment under Taliban rule.
Since the start of the year, at least 128 people—including 27 women—have been subjected to public flogging, often combined with prison sentences. Just in the past 48 hours, 14 people—including two women—were flogged in public, he said.
Bennett also cited reports of torture and sexual violence in Taliban-run detention centers, raising concerns over the lack of legal protections for detainees and the continued erosion of fundamental rights.
Bennett warned that the Taliban’s extreme policies, combined with economic hardship, are likely to fuel radicalization among young Afghan men and boys, creating long-term security risks for the region and beyond.
“As the Taliban tightens its grip on the people of Afghanistan, with further discrimination, oppression, and control of information, these risks will only grow,” he said.
Afghans continue to flee the country, driven by persecution, arbitrary arrests, and worsening poverty, he added.
Bennett urged the U.N. and the international community to keep Afghanistan a priority, despite competing global crises. He called for an independent investigative mechanism with a victim-centered mandate to hold the Taliban accountable for its systematic rights violations.
However, he warned that his office’s ability to address these issues has been severely limited due to the U.N.’s liquidity crisis, leaving him with less than half the support mandated by the Human Rights Council.
Despite these challenges, he insisted that the world must not turn its back on Afghanistan, reiterating his call for stronger international pressure and accountability measures.
“We must not allow history to repeat itself,” he said.
