Women WorldWide: January 2025

February 1, 2025

by Artemis

The Taliban has mandated full-body covering for women in public. Photo: imtfi, CC BY-SA 2.0

On Jan. 24, the International Criminal Court (ICC) was petitioned by its chief prosecutor Karim Khan to issue arrest warrants for two Taliban officials: Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani. ICC prosecutors are investigating the Taliban’s increasingly horrific laws oppressing women as war crimes and human rights violations. Since seizing power in Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban has forbidden women’s education and employment. It mandated full-body covering, forbade the sound of women’s voices in public, and they mandated women must be accompanied by a male relative. Women can only receive medical care from female doctors and health professionals, but women can no longer receive medical training! Since female health workers are vital to vaccination campaigns, Afghanistan is at risk of a polio outbreak. The Taliban executes women and male allies protesting these conditions.

Human rights groups praised this major step by the ICC. The Afghan Women’s Movement for Justice and Awareness stated: “We consider this achievement a symbol of the strength and will of Afghan women and believe this step will start a new chapter of accountability and justice in the country.”

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In November 2024, Libya’s UN-backed government in Tripoli announced the formation of “morality police” to enforce new restrictions on women. Starting at age nine, girls are now required to wear a veil or hijab. Women must be accompanied by a male guardian and there must be no “inappropriate” behavior between men and women in public. Ahmed Hamza, head of Libya’s National Human Rights Committee, stated, “These policies are merely a means to reinforce governmental control. Amid severe political and economic fragmentation, it seems the government is using these initiatives to divert attention from core issues.” The Committee has filed a legal complaint against Interior Minister Al-Trabelsi with the Attorney General, calling the new measures a “blatant violation of individual freedoms” and a “punishable offense under the law.” Amnesty International stated these are human rights violations that “violate Libya’s obligations under international law.” Several women told news agencies that men started harassing them over supposed violations in their attire even before the new laws were enacted.

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In November 2024, news broke in Toronto, Canada, regarding two cases from earlier in the year. A group of girls ages 15 to 17 reported to police what they thought was a crime. A boy they knew had photos on his phone of their faces manipulated by artificial intelligence tools to appear to be on nude bodies, creating explicit “deepfake” porn of them without their consent. A month later, investigators explained to the girls they would not press charges because of gaps in legislation addressing deepfake images. The images were not considered child pornography since there was no evidence of the boy sharing them. The girls expressed to reporters their humiliation and fear the boy may have secretly shared the images or posted them online. A 16-year-old girl in another case reported a stranger sending her a deepfake of herself, but police could not find evidence of distribution. The cases ignited public discussion of the exploitative potential of new technology and how to legislate it.

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