Justice Delayed is Justice Denied: Why Afghan Survivors Need Sustained ICC Action

[Yifat Susskind is the Executive Director of MADRE, an international human rights organization dedicated to meeting urgent needs in communities facing crisis and using the human rights framework to create durable social change]

For women, girls, and LGBTQI+ persons in Afghanistan, the struggle for justice has never been more urgent. With each passing day, the Taliban is consolidating power while the international community edges toward normalizing relations with Afghanistan’s de facto rulers. This leaves the International Criminal Court (ICC) as one of the few institutions able to secure justice for Afghans targeted with gender persecution. 

Earlier this year, the Court made a landmark decision when it issued arrest warrants against two top Taliban figures for gender persecution as crimes against humanity. The warrants mark the first time any international tribunal has recognized LGBTQI+ persons as victims of crimes against humanity and affirm that institutionalized oppression of women and girls will be met with international accountability. 

Behind this milestone lies a story of extraordinary courage—both from the survivors who risked everything to share their experiences, and from the prosecutors and judges who chose to act despite immense political pressure, including U.S. sanctions. 

For many of the Afghans abused by the Taliban simply for being women, girls, or LGBTQI+ persons, testifying had seemed impossible at first. Survivors were traumatized and isolated, each carrying the burden of the violence they’d endured alone and in silence. Moreover, the threat of retribution for testifying was palpable. The risk was not limited to survivors themselves. Many of their families were still in Afghanistan, often unaware of survivors’ experiences of sexual violence or LGBTQI+ status. Disclosure could expose loved ones to social stigma, discrimination, or even direct threats from the Taliban. Survivors feared that there was no safe way to travel to The Hague and share their stories with prosecutors.

That started to change in 2023, when MADRE, a feminist human rights organization, began meeting with Afghan survivors. MADRE offered trauma-informed, survivor-centered psycho-social and legal support. They built trust slowly. Gradually, survivors began to speak. They provided testimony and shared evidence to build a legal case at the ICC. 

The Court’s Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) wanted to hold senior Taliban leaders accountable. But in late 2024, Donald Trump was reelected. History suggested that sanctions from the incoming administration were all but certain. Anyone leading high-profile cases could face serious personal and professional consequences. With Trump’s inauguration looming, the OTP moved to file the two arrest warrants that were already finalized, expecting to release more in time. The decision was tactical, allowing the Court to act before the impending political storm could pose challenges to its efforts. 

Watch the ICC’s January 2025 announcement of the warrants, and you can already see the chilling effect of the two-day-old Trump Administration. Standing at the podium, the Court’s Chief Prosecutor is flanked by only one person: Professor Lisa Davis, author of the ICC’s groundbreaking policy on gender persecution, which enabled the charges against the Taliban. 

As predicted, just weeks after the OTP announced the first two warrants, the Trump Administration imposed sanctions against the Chief Prosecutor. Despite the OTP’s assurance that more warrants were coming “soon,” U.S. hostility towards the Court was a significant obstacle. The sanctions threatened the personal and professional lives of many Court personnel, who now risked travel bans, seizures of assets held in the U.S. and—for some—even jail time. 

Yet, by then something had shifted. The announcement of the first two warrants galvanized Afghan survivors. As one young woman stated, “We’ve lost our fear. We won’t be silenced and we won’t be shamed.” Their courage, in turn, was contagious. It spread to MADRE’s legal team, who under Davis’ guidance as a law professor and clinic director, conducted missions to third countries, meeting with Afghan refugees who had survived gender persecution. And it spread to Davis and other members of the Court, who stood firm, prepared to uphold the law even as they faced sanctions from the Trump Administration. 

The warrants requested in January (and confirmed on July 8) are more than a legal milestone. They are a bold affirmation of what becomes possible when three essential forces align: courageous survivors whose stories make legal action possible, civil society groups that work to protect and support them, and principled individuals within legal institutions willing to act on evidence and pursue justice despite political risk. 

Unfortunately, the Court’s sluggish pace post-January has diminished the practical and symbolic force of the first two arrest warrants. The lack of follow-up has enabled the creeping normalization of the Taliban as legitimate state authorities, at the very moment when Afghan civil society and their supporters are advocating against such recognition. And inaction has implications far beyond Afghanistan, sending a message to perpetrators worldwide that gender persecution can be committed with impunity. 

What’s more, the slow progress now makes any additional warrants subject to a new rule adopted by the ICC in November 2025. It requires that all future arrest warrant filings be sealed. Sealing warrants is sometimes necessary, for example to prevent suspects from fleeing. But the Taliban officials under investigation are not flight risks. Their de facto authority is contingent on operating visibly in the public roles they have assumed; their power would be forfeited by going into hiding. 

As Afghan survivors have made clear, the impact of public warrants is far more than procedural. Naming a perpetrator—formally and in a legal document—acknowledges the harm survivors have suffered. It affirms that what they endured was wrong and unlawful, and that their abusers will be held personally accountable. This recognition is inseparable from the full measure of justice that survivors deserve. Public warrants not only benefit individual survivors, they also empower civil society, and maintain international attention on atrocities—outcomes that are less likely when filings are kept behind closed doors. Finally, in cases where actual arrests or trials may be unlikely—such as the arrest warrants issued for President Putin of Russia and Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Secretary Gallant of Israel—the public naming becomes part of the remedy itself, denying perpetrators the legitimacy they seek. In fact, in many ICC cases, visibility is the point. 

Visibility is particularly crucial for gender crimes, which remain underrepresented in international tribunals. Most cases focus narrowly on, for example, sexual violence or forced marriage, while the broader spectrum of abuses—such as gender-based persecution for exercising rights to education, expression, or assembly—rarely receives attention. The Taliban warrants recognize that wider array of gendered harms. Publicizing them affirms that such abuses occur, are serious, and are legally actionable; conversely, sealing the warrants misses a rare opportunity to reinforce global norms against gender persecution.

Today, Afghan refugees, including many fleeing gender persecution, face growing restrictions. The Trump administration has barred Afghan passport holders from U.S. entry and halted asylum applications indefinitely. The legal victories of the ICC will mean little if survivors are denied refuge from the very perpetrators named in the warrants. The combination of restrictive migration policies and delayed legal action threatens survivors and undercuts the Court’s ability to secure justice.

Afghan survivors deserve continued advocacy, enforcement, and accountability. They deserve a Court that follows through on the promises made in January, and prosecutors able to work without political interference. Only then can justice be real and durable.

The Taliban warrants are historic, yes, but their full potential depends on further action and visibility. Releasing the remaining warrants, affirming that gender persecution is a crime, and sustaining international scrutiny are essential next steps. For the people of Afghanistan, for survivors, and for the principles of justice itself, there is no time to lose.