Eduardo González
Fifty Afghan women participated this Friday, December 12, in the conference “HearUs 2025: Promoting Accountability for Women in Afghanistan,” organized at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with Women For Afghanistan and inaugurated by the Minister, José Manuel Albares.
HearUs 2025 brought together in Madrid a wide range of Afghan activists and human rights defenders, both men and women, Afghan survivors, global experts, prominent women leaders, special envoys for Afghan affairs, ambassadors for feminist foreign policy and gender equality from partner countries, UN representatives, and leading civil society organizations.
The aim of the conference, according to the Ministry, was to establish a shared and practical roadmap for justice, accountability, and the long-term protection of the human rights of Afghan women and girls through international legal mechanisms. The conference builds on the outcomes of HearUs 2024, held in Madrid, and the “All Afghan Women Summit” held in Tirana.
The conference also featured speeches by Michelle Bachelet, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Vice-President of the Club of Madrid; Richard Bennett, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan; and Fawzia Koofi, Chair of the Board of Directors of Women for Afghanistan.
“Today we are here to ensure that your voice, the voice of free Afghan women, is heard loud and clear throughout the world, and that your image becomes an example that words are possible, justice is possible, freedom is possible, and all of this is something that neither you nor we will ever renounce,” Albares affirmed during the inauguration.
“No one will stop you because you chose the most difficult path, but also the bravest. You decided to speak out when they wanted to silence you, you chose to claim your rights when they wanted to discriminate against you, you decided to organize when they wanted to divide you,” he continued.
The minister denounced the degradation of human rights in Afghanistan, especially for women and girls, and asserted that 18 million women are excluded from public and social life, which affects all aspects of their lives, such as food, education, access to healthcare, increased maternal mortality, increased child marriage, and teenage pregnancies. “Afghan women, you defend your rights and, in doing so, you defend democracy, freedom, and the very idea of humanity,” he declared.
The minister also affirmed that, from the very beginning of the Taliban regime’s restoration in August 2021, Spain has supported the creation of international mechanisms for justice, such as the independent inquiry mechanism into human rights violations in Afghanistan within the European Union and the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Spain has joined other countries, such as Albania, Chile, Finland, Luxembourg, and Morocco, in calling for the Taliban to face international justice and has supported the accountability initiative adopted by Australia, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands, which have taken formal steps to demand that Afghanistan cease its violations of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), to which Afghanistan is a State Party under Article 29. Such violations could lead to the International Court of Justice taking action against the country.
At the end of November 2024, Spain, Chile, Costa Rica, France, Luxembourg, and Mexico referred the situation in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, requesting that it include in its investigation into the situation in Afghanistan the crimes against women and girls committed since the Taliban took power in 2021.
Last October, Madrid hosted the meeting of the People’s Tribunal for Afghan Women, an initiative, supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that provided an opportunity to hear testimonies, denounce the normalization of oppression, and open new avenues for demanding justice.