The International Peace Institute (IPI) together with the Atlantic Council and Malala Fund and other organizations, hosted a discussion on the situation of women and "Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan" on March 8th.
  
IPI in a statement said that the caretaker government in Afghanistan has issued over 85 decrees focused on curtailing girls’ and women’s rights. 

The participants in this discussion asked for international support of women in Afghanistan. 

Nobel Peace Laureate Malala Yousafzai in the discussion called on the world not to forget about Afghan women. 

“This is important that we as a global community stand with them, because if we are willing to show that we are looking away from the Afghan women, it sends a devastating message to the women and girls in Afghanistan, but also to girls everywhere,” she said. 

“It’s the only country in the world, where the right to education for women and girls over 12 years of age is prohibited. Right to work, right to access to health, right to access to justice, freedom of association, freedom of expression so the concept of gender apartheid is not just a theoretical construct or a legal abstraction, it’s the reality of millions of girls and women today,” said Dorothy Estrada-Tanck, Chair, UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls.

This event was co-sponsored by the Global Justice Center, Rawadari human rights organization, and Georgetown Institute of Women. 

Although the Islamic Emirate has not said anything about the issued decrees, it emphasizes that the suspension of education for women and girls does not equate to imposing sanctions on girls in Afghanistan.

“Sisters are present in various sectors like men, the paralysis in the field of women’s education and work is for the improvement and preservation of the sisters not because of the imposition of punishment on them,” said Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman of the Islamic Emirate.

 “We ask the Islamic Emirate to remove the imposed restrictions on women in the social and educational sectors,” said Halima, a student. 

Earlier, Josep Borrell Fontelles, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, spoke about the existence of gender discrimination after the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan. The issue which has been repeatedly rejected by the Islamic Emirate.