A Test in Upholding Universal Freedoms h3. South Africa was an exemplar in racial apartheid; today selective countries are following ethnic apartheid. South Africa has tagged Israel as perpetuating apartheid against Palestinians. The author, Maryam Nayeb Yazdi reminds us here how apartheid creates a corresponding extension of human rights. This includes gender apartheid as it is being practiced in Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

“Freedom cannot be achieved unless the women have been emancipated from all forms of oppression,” said President Nelson Mandela in his inaugural speech at the opening of South Africa’s first democratic parliament on May 24, 1994.

The landmark speech was heard around the world, following South Africa’s first democratic elections, in which all citizens, regardless of race, could vote. And it marked the official end of apartheid rule.

But Mandela’s mention of women emphasized that we must not fail to universalize human rights. His vision for a just society was rooted in dismantling all systems of oppression, not only those based on race. He made clear that ending racial apartheid was not enough. A nation repressing half its population cannot claim freedom, coherence, or legitimacy.

None of that would have been possible without the international community cutting ties with the apartheid regime and stripping it of legitimacy. Apartheid did not begin the moment the world defined it in law. It existed long before recognition, and it took immense pressure and the fear of lost legitimacy – to create the political will to acknowledge that reality. The same truth still confronts us today. p.Mandela’s vision for a just society was rooted in dismantling all systems of oppression, not only those based on race. He made clear that ending racial apartheid was not enough. A nation repressing half its population cannot claim freedom, coherence, or legitimacy.

However, the same truth still confronts us today. In the 21st century gender apartheid persists even though the current legal definition of apartheid does not include gender.

The situation of women and girls in Afghanistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia fits every structural condition, though some restrictions have been lifted in Saudi Arabia in recent years. They remain institutionalized regimes of systematic oppression and domination by men, enforced with the intention of maintaining that system.“Apartheid in South Africa ended only after the world withdrew ties, stripped legitimacy, and codified the crime.”

The obstacle is not one of definition. International law already recognizes gender persecution and other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity. Yet because women and girls are not valued equally at the international level, our institutions themselves sustain apartheid — choosing not to enforce the very laws that should hold these regimes accountable.

Still, codification matters. The End Gender Apartheid Campaign is a legal effort to add the word “gender” alongside “race” in the definition of apartheid in the new Crimes Against Humanity Treaty currently being drafted at the UN. Once codified, a legal pathway would exist to prosecute regimes like the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The campaign was launched by civil society leaders in Afghanistan and Iran including Narges Mohammadi and Metra Mehran. Nargess remains in Iran despite years of imprisonment and abuse by the regime. Metra was forced to leave Afghanistan and move to the US due to the Taliban takeover.

The campaign’s focus on the Taliban is strategic. Afghanistan is a party to the Rome Statute, and the International Criminal Court already has an open case there, which makes prosecution more feasible. Iran is indisputably ruled by a gender apartheid regime, but the political will to focus on the regime in Iran still needs to be strengthened. Saudi Arabia also qualifies, but political will is completely absent due to the regime’s positive relations with western governments.

And although the Taliban’s brutality is much more visible, we must be careful not to confuse visibility with extremity. Long-lasting apartheid systems often become more sophisticated at concealing their crimes.

For years, the narrative was: “At least Iranian women can drive unlike Saudi women.” Now, with the Taliban, it has shifted: “At least Iranian women can go to school.” These comparisons allow regimes to hide behind one another. The less visible the violence becomes, the more insidious and harmful it is.

History shows us that recognition matters. Apartheid in South Africa ended only after the world withdrew ties, stripped legitimacy, and codified the crime. The United Nations declared apartheid a crime against humanity in 1973, fueling sanctions and delegitimizing the regime until it could no longer stand. That international pressure, combined with domestic resistance, opened the pathway to Mandela’s release in 1990 and South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994.

Today, the same recognition is urgently needed for gender apartheid. Codification will not only delegitimize regimes but also provide legal ammunition to hold accountable those who sustain them through business, diplomacy, or silence.

But codification alone is not enough. Gender-based persecution and other inhumane acts are already recognized as crimes against humanity. The deeper failure is our unwillingness to prioritize universal human rights at all. We compromise them daily for profit, political power, and status.

That is why the most vulnerable members of our global community remain unprotected. Girls and women are treated as expendable in the calculus of power. And when we allow a system of apartheid against half of humanity, we are witnessing not only their subjugation but our collective failure to universalize human rights.

One of the greatest failures of the global women’s rights and feminist movements has been the lack of universality. Too often these spaces become insulated, focused on issues that primarily affect their own societies.

Women in the United States fight battles unique to their context. Women in Europe, once their rights reach a certain threshold, turn to more nuanced debates. But while attention narrows to local struggles, women and girls in countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are stripped of even the most basic human rights, left to advocate for their own humanity while the world looks away.“Girls and women are treated as expendable in the calculus of power.”

This fractured approach allows systems of gender apartheid to persist unchecked. Our governments remain complicit in sustaining regimes that enforce them, while feminists in freer societies fail to see their complicity in perpetuating the situation of women living under apartheid rule.

The result is that those facing the most violent forms of systemic gender oppression — denied education, freedom of movement, the right to work, or even the right to speak in public — are the most isolated.“when we allow a system of apartheid against half of humanity, we are witnessing not only their subjugation but our collective failure to universalize human rights.”

Solidarity cannot be selective. Naming and confronting gender apartheid is essential, not only to support the women living under these regimes, but also to recognize that gender apartheid is not a distant phenomenon. It is the extreme manifestation of what happens when the world sidelines human rights, and it could happen anywhere.

And this is not only a women’s issue. Where gender apartheid exists, no human within that system can access universal rights. In a system of gender apartheid, girls and women are the most systematically and brutally targeted, but the absence of universality corrodes freedom for all.

The struggle against gender apartheid, then, is not a side issue. It is the test of how much we value the wellbeing of humanity and whether we understand how connected human wellbeing is to accessing universal basic freedoms.

The world once declared racial apartheid a crime against humanity, and that declaration changed history. We must do the same with gender apartheid — not tomorrow, not after endless debate, but now. That means action:

• Sign the open letter urging countries to recognize gender apartheid.

• Organize public events and rallies in solidarity with the End Gender Apartheid Campaign.

• Demand that states incorporate the dismantling of gender apartheid regimes into their foreign policy toward Iran and Afghanistan.

• Push governments to incorporate the crime of gender apartheid into domestic law.

• Support civil society organizations working with states to adopt a declaration on the crime of gender apartheid. Because freedom is never partial. It is universal, or it is not freedom at all.