Kabul, Feb. 27 -- Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has called on the international community to formally recognise what he termed "gender apartheid" in Afghanistan, stating that under the Taliban, women are facing systematic and institutionalised restrictions in society.
Addressing the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday, Turk said that the Islamist group's recent decrees have entrenched a structure of gender-based exclusion that has come to define nearly every aspect of public life in Afghanistan.
He argued that the scale and consistency of the measures amount to more than isolated violations, instead constituting a formalised system of oppression that warrants legal recognition under international law.
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