Ireland’s Minister for Justice, Jim O’Callaghan, told the United Nations Security Council during a meeting on Women, Peace and Security that sexual violence is being used in Afghanistan as a tool to restrict the rights and freedoms of women and girls.
The meeting marked the Security Council’s 119th session on Women, Peace and Security and focused on supporting survivors of conflict-related sexual violence and advancing the implementation of international legal commitments in this area. The session was attended by officials and representatives from various countries, as well as Pramila Patten, the UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict.
Citing the UN Secretary-General’s report, O’Callaghan said that conflict-related sexual violence including rape, gang rape, human trafficking, forced marriage, abduction, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, forced sterilisation, and other forms of sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war and a means of spreading terror in 21 conflict-affected regions around the world.
He said the number of verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence in 2025 had more than doubled compared with the previous year, reaching nearly 10,000 cases. However, he stressed that the figures do not reflect the full scale of the crisis, as many incidents go unreported because of the difficult circumstances faced by survivors.
At the same meeting, Karin Jäulin, a representative of civil society, said that women and children in Afghanistan, Palestine, Myanmar, Sudan, and several other countries continue to bear the greatest burden of conflict-related sexual violence. She added that the international community has remained indifferent to the situation for too long and has failed to respond adequately.
Pramila Patten, the UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, said without directly referring to the Taliban that 35 members of armed groups were convicted of conflict-related sexual violence last year, and that court rulings had provided reparations to survivors of these crimes.
She also stated that more than 1,000 children born as a result of rape were registered during the past year, underscoring the vast scale of the crisis.
The remarks come as Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, and Human Rights Watch have previously reported separately that the Taliban have issued around 80 decrees and directives restricting the rights of women and girls since returning to power.
According to those reports, the Taliban have barred women and girls from attending secondary schools and universities, visiting parks, public bathhouses, and beauty salons, travelling without a male guardian (mahram), and working in many non-governmental organisations, international institutions, and United Nations agencies.
Earlier, seven countries including Afghanistan’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, Australia, Iceland, Mexico, Spain, Timor-Leste, and Uruguay formally called on UN Secretary-General António Guterres to include the concept of gender apartheid in the proposed treaty on crimes against humanity.
Women’s rights activists argue that the Taliban’s policies toward women and girls amount to gender apartheid and have urged the international community to recognise the concept under international law in order to increase pressure on the Taliban to respect the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan.
Writer:Salima Aryaei
