A coalition of Afghan civil society organizations has announcedt today the launch of a People’s Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan before this Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT), an initiative to address the impunity around gender persecution in Afghanistan. By launching this session, Afghan civil society and women’s rights groups are creating a pathway to hold the Taliban accountable for their crimes and demand justice, raise the alarm about normalization of Taliban’s oppression of women and give women and girls their chance to be heard around the world.
According to the request submitted to the PPT in December 2024, since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, Afghan women and girls have endured a significant rollback of their fundamental human rights. Banned from secondary and university education, forbidden from working in nearly all professions, and excluded from public life, they now face one of the most extreme forms of gender-based oppression in the world. Women and girls have been silenced and marginalised in their country and risk being forgotten by the world.
While the Afghan civil society coalition supports all other accountability mechanisms on Afghanistan and particularly welcomes the International Criminal Court’s July 2025 arrest warrants against senior Taliban leaders for the crime against humanity of gender persecution, it emphasizes that this step alone is insufficient. The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal process highlights the urgent need for broader and more sustained action to address justice and accountability in Afghanistan, and calls for a comprehensive, victim-centred, and holistic approach to transitional justice.
The public hearing will take place in Madrid, Spain, from 8th to 10th October 2025. Il will provide Afghan women and girls a platform to share their testimony, as well as include expert testimonies from civil society, jurists, and global human rights specialists. The hearing will be followed by an initial statement from the PPT judges on 10th October. The final verdict will be issued in the first half of December 2025.
Background information:
The PPT is international opinion tribunal, which addresses cases of gross violations of human rights, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. The PPT has held more than 50 sessions all over the world. It has previously held two sessions on Afghanistan, addressing the 1979 Soviet invasion, in Stockholm (1981) and Paris (1982).
The Afghan coalition comprises four organizations: Rawadari, Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization (AHRDO), Organization for Policy Research and Development Studies (DROPS), and Human Rights Defenders Plus (HRD+). In addition, since December 2024, the four organizations have held discussions and consultations with victims, survivors, Islamic scholars, international human rights lawyers, civil society organizations, and international criminal justice academics and experts, both inside and outside Afghanistan.
Chronology:
December 2024: Afghan coalition submitted a request to the Permanent People’s Tribunal
January 2025: Permanent People’s Tribunal accepted the request
July 2025: Announcement of the People’s Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan
October 8-10 2025: Hearings will be held in Madrid, Spain
December 2025: Verdict will be issued.
Background on People’s Tribunals: See Rawadari’s paper, Avenues for Justice.
Contacts:
The Requesting organisations: Afg-pt@rawadari.org
The PPT: ppt@permanentpeoplestribunal.org