News & Analysis Event Summaries

 A Community Holding onto Hope: Georgetown Screens Documentary on the Fight for Women’s Rights in Afghanistan

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan after U.S. troops withdrew in 2021, they quickly began restricting women’s rights—despite past promises—with systematic repression so violent and extreme that it is nothing less than gender apartheid. This was not a surprise to the Afghan women who had been negotiating with the Taliban in 2020. And it also hasn’t stopped them from continuing to fight. 

On February 4, the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University highlighted the story of the Afghan women negotiators in a process that eventually led, not yo peace, but to the Taliban’s takeover in 2021 and the devastating assault on the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan today. 

The event began with a screening of The Sharp Edge of Peace, a documentary directed by Roya Sadat and produced by Leslie Thomas (SFS’86). The film follows four Afghan women, Fawzia Koofi, Dr. Habiba Sarabi, Fatima Gailani, and Sharifa Zurmati, who risked their lives negotiating with the Taliban in an attempt to preserve the rights women and girls gained over two decades. All four held positions of power before the Taliban takeover and understood what a return to Taliban rule would entail.

“The women of Afghanistan knew who the Taliban were and what a takeover meant for their lives and the trajectory of their country,” said Metra Mehran, policy advisor to the End Gender Apartheid Campaign.

The documentary showed the history for Afghan women’s rights, including achieving the right to vote in 1919, run for office in 1964, and the establishment of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in 2004. Though progress abruptly halted and unraveled during the first Taliban takeover from 1996 to 2001, all the progress made in the two decades following was demolished after the U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban’s return to power. 

Hopes Dashed for a Genuine Peace Process

Dr. Sarabi, former minister of women’s affairs, said watching the film still brings pain, recalling a time when negotiations carried hope that women might retain some rights. That hope faded as the Taliban enforced an extreme interpretation of Islam that the subjects of the film said contradicts the religion’s core values.

“Everything that happened was fake,” Dr. Sarabi said. “They pretended they changed, but they became more extreme and more cruel.”

A large audience watched as the film showed first hand the role the four women played over months of negotiations in Doha in 2020. They engaged with the Taliban leaders to reach across the divide to protect even the most basic freedoms. By the end of the film, viewers saw the negotiators’ hopes for a genuine peace agreement dashed as the Taliban would soon seize control and systematically suppress women’s rights, from education, employment, public life, and political participation.

However, Koofi, a former Afghan parliamentarian, emphasized in the film that Afghan women today are not the same women who endured Taliban rule in the 1990s. Today’s generation has experienced a society closer to equality and are unwilling to relinquish their rights without resistance.

Peace without Women’s Rights is Not Peace at All 

Zurmati, an Afghan parliamentarian and journalist, underscored one of the film’s central messages: peace without women’s rights is not peace at all.

“If the rights of citizens and women are not protected, we cannot call it peace,” she said. 

Dr. Sarabi reflected on decades of war and the search for unity amid the horrific bloodshed, including the bombing of a school for girls in 2022.

“Peace is not a luxury, it’s a necessity,” said Gailani, president of the Afghan Red Crescent Society, questioning why women’s rights are treated as negotiable rather than fundamental.

A Deepening Crisis

The screening came as Afghanistan faces a deepening humanitarian crisis. Women are now systematically excluded from nearly every aspect of public life, while the Taliban’s repression has expanded to the broader population. GIWPS’s Women, Peace and Security Index ranks Afghanistan the worst country in the world to be a woman.

The film was followed by a panel discussion, moderated by GIWPS Executive Director Melanne Verveer, examining the worsening human rights crisis in Afghanistan and the global consequences of abandoning Afghan women. Panelists highlighted the regime’s newly adopted criminal regulation which legalizes slavery and imposes a caste system. 

Mehran said the code institutionalizes oppression, eliminates civil society entirely, and was made as a way to legalize the punishment of Afghan people.

Dr. Mirwais Balkhi, former Afghan minister of education, warned of the psychological toll on nearly 6 million girls now denied education and the long-term consequences of what he called the “Madrasafication” of the education system.

US Ends Protections for Afghans

Despite these crises, the Trump administration recently compounded problems for Afghans by announcing the end of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Afghans living in the U.S., citing improved safety conditions in Afghanistan. Panelists rejected that assessment, stressing the dire situation of the Afghan people today.

In fact, ending TPS means returning Afghans—many of whom helped the U.S. military—would likely face a death sentence in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

“If they go back, it means execution,” said Mehran 

Sadat said the long fight for human rights in Afghanistan and lack of resolution stem from political indifference.

“If you’re wondering about the future of women’s rights,” Sadat said, “you should care about Afghanistan.”

Don’t Turn Away

Panelists stressed that turning away from Afghanistan now would be a grave mistake. They called on governments to pressure the Taliban through existing diplomatic and legal tools, to monitor U.S. engagement with the regime, and formally criminalize gender apartheid.

“The fear is that the Taliban will be normalized,” Verveer said. “But what’s normal about enslaving half the population?”

The message of the evening was clear: Women in Afghanistan have not given up, so the world should not turn its back on the fight for a just and equal society. There are many tools the international community should use to put pressure on the Taliban so long as there’s a collective will to end a decades long attack on human dignity, not just in Afghanistan, but around the world. 

Calls to Action

Panelists offered concrete recommendations from how the international community can raise their voices to support Afghan women and their fight for human rights:

  • Support the enforcement of ICC arrest warrants – Publicly support the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants on Taliban leaders for gender persecution and push for enforcement, including executing arrests and restricting diplomatic engagement. Ensure investigations include testimony and leadership from Afghan women and civil society. 
  • Advance accountability at the ICJ – Urge countries, including Germany, Australia, Netherlands and Canada, to follow through on commitments to bring Taliban to the International Court of Justice over severe gender discrimination and violating the CEDWA treaty. 
  • Strengthen accountability mechanisms – Provide political and financial support to the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Afghanistan (IIM-A), an initiative established by the Human Rights Council to collect, preserve and analyze evidence of serious international crimes in Afghanistan.
  • Codify gender apartheid under international law – Strengthen advocacy and support for the codification of gender apartheid as a crime against humanity. 
  • Ensure sustainable funding to Afghanistan civil society – Provide direct, flexible funding to Afghan women-led organizations, including those operating in exile and underground networks inside Afghanistan. 
  • Protect Afghan women in the U.S. and abroad – Engage with U.S. actors to expand humanitarian visas and temporary protected status for Afghan women living in the U.S., while urging Congress to address conditions inside Afghanistan as well. 
  • Ask your representative in Congress to ensure that U.S. foreign policy related to Afghanistan fulfills its legal obligations under U.S. public laws – by monitoring full implementation of the Women, Peace, and Security Act to ensure Afghan women’s participation and protection, and by strictly enforcing the Leahy Law to prevent U.S. intelligence and security engagement from supporting Taliban forces or human rights violators.
  • Elevate Afghan women’s leadership in media – Promote storytelling among various platforms that communicate the resilience, strength and achievements of women of Afghanistan while also highlighting rights violations–including journalism by Afghanistan Justice Archive,Rukhshana Media, Zan Times, and the Afghanistan Women News Agency.

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