Mapping Gender Apartheid Diplomacy

This paper maps the emerging landscape of gender apartheid diplomacy in response to the Taliban’s systematic repression of women’s rights in Afghanistan. We identify three key diplomatic approaches: (1) engagement, maintaining dialogue and negotiation with the Taliban; (2) conditional engagement, tying interaction to human rights demands; and (3) non-engagement, rejecting diplomatic contact to signal disapproval or delegitimise the regime. In mapping these types of diplomatic (non)engagement, we focus on two groups of states with specific obligations: First, ISAF/NATO countries that were involved in Afghanistan as part of the 2001 US-led intervention and whose military engagement creates a responsibility for accountability; Second, the 114 states that have endorsed the UN Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda through National Action Plans (NAPs) and whose normative commitments expect them to uphold women’s rights. Our findings reveal a surprising pattern that differentiates state approaches, cutting across the usual divide between Western and the global South states. We further investigate this pattern by selecting two examples from each engagement type to analyse how diplomacy has translated into political and practical support for Afghan women and girls. This analysis highlighting the role of political leadership in gender apartheid diplomacy and how feminist approaches that foreground the political and practical needs of women and girls, offer pathways toward more accountable and justice-oriented diplomacy.