Personalities, including Hillary Clinton and feminists, called on the United Nations to criminalize gender discrimination in a letter to their member states on Thursday.

Among the signatures, those of Pakistani women’s rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai and author and well-known feminist Gloria Steinem stand out.

The text, also signed by prominent Afghan women fighters, comes as the international community appears powerless to prevent the Taliban’s de facto authorities from continuing to tighten restrictions on women in Afghanistan.

“Failure to criminalize gender apartheid widens the accountability gap, leaving victims and survivors without resolution or redress,” according to the letter, which was co-authored by the Atlantic Council (Washington) and Global Justice Center (New York).

The text calls on UN member states to review the provisions of the treaty under discussion on crimes against humanity and to include gender discrimination in it.

Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban government, which applies an extreme version of Islamic law, has continued to curtail the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan. Within two years, secondary schools and universities closed their doors to girls and women, as well as parks, sports grounds, hammams.

The Taliban’s policy shows the need to have a legal arsenal to prosecute such acts, he said.

The Taliban are “systematically” trying to “delete women from the political and economic sphere” in Afghanistan, Fauzia Koofi, a former member of parliament during the days of the Western-backed government that was overthrown by Islamists in Kabul, told AFP.

“How can we imagine a prosperous future in Afghanistan when even the breath of women is under suffocating control?”, she asked.