End Gender Apartheid Work at The Promise Institute

The Promise Institute was deeply honored to continue our work with the End Gender Apartheid Campaign by co-sponsoring the 2024 American Society of International Law (ASIL) Champion of the International Rule of Law Award presented to Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai last week. The event marked 12 years since Malala was shot by the Taliban at the age of 15 for speaking out against their extremist policies banning girls from schools. 

Other co-sponsors included the Malala Fund and the Open Society Foundations. Executive Director, Prof. Hannah R. Garry, was on the planning committee for the ASIL Gala, hosted at the New York City Bar Association.

Malala Yousafzai and Prof. Hannah R. Garry

The evening featured an inspiring discussion with Malala; Binaifer Nowrojee, President, Open Society Foundations; and Sahar Halaimzai, Director, Afghanistan Initiative, Malala Fund, about the urgency of addressing the human rights crisis facing women and girls in Afghanistan under the Taliban since August 2021, and the global campaign to end gender apartheid as a crime against humanity under international law.

UCLA Law alums Zoe Cassavetti ’24, Jordan Murphy ’24, Jawid Habib ’14, and Jawid’s partner Nargis Habib, who was denied an education under the Taliban in Afghanistan as a young girl, joined the event. 

Yousafzai began her activism for girls’ education at age 11 when she anonymously blogged for the BBC about extreme rights violations under the Taliban’s affiliate organization in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. In 2014, she co-founded the Malala Fund with her father to pursue her fight to see every girl enjoy the right to a free, safe, quality education and have the freedom to lead their own futures. Yousafzai was the youngest-ever recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her efforts.

As she stated during the gala panel discussion, women and girls in Afghanistan today still have a gun to their heads with near total erasure of their fundamental rights and presence in public life through over 100 edicts and decrees issued by the Taliban since 2021. Rights denied include rights to life, freedom of expression, education, employment, justice, and movement. The Taliban reached a new low this past August when they announced the Law on Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices — a law which makes it illegal for a woman’s voice to be heard in public.

Yousafzai giving remarks after being awarded ASIL's Champion of the International Rule of Law Award

Metra Mehran of the Atlantic Council, Lena Alfi of the Malala Fund, and Prof. Garry

Prof. Garry with UCLA Law alumni Jordan Murphy ’24, and Zoe Cassavetti ’24 

UCLA Law alumnus Jawid Habib ’14, Prof. Garry, and Nargis Habib

The next day, Garry participated in an expert round table with Afghan Women Human Rights Defenders, including Metra Mehran of the Atlantic Council, hosted by the Open Society Justice Initiative and co-convened by ASIL and the Malala Fund. She advised on how the concept of gender apartheid could frame investigations and charges at the International Criminal Court.

Snapshot of expert roundtable

Discussion focused on:

The urgent humanitarian and human rights crisis in Afghanistan demands response by the international community to uphold gender justice. In solidarity with Afghan women, The Promise Institute will continue to support their calls for codification of gender apartheid, investigation, and prosecution before the International Criminal Court of key Taliban leaders, and non-recognition of the legitimacy of Taliban authority in Afghanistan in light of grave violations of Afghanistan’s international legal obligations to recognize and protect the rights of women and girls.

If you'd like to join us in this work, please reach out: promiseinstitute@law.ucla.edu.

The Promise Institute for Human Rights acknowledges our presence on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples.

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