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Inside the Taliban's gender apartheid

Mar 7, 2024

Inside Afghanistan’s gender apartheid: Listen as women reveal the impact of the Taliban’s oppressive decrees

Since the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, women have battled against increasingly severe restrictions on education, employment, and daily public life. This report, a joint effort by the Civic Engagement Project and the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, underscores their remarkable resilience and unyielding spirit in the face of gender apartheid.

Afghanistan Human Rights

In the News

May 29, 2023

Halaimzai & Theros in PeaceRep: Establishing the Afghanistan Research Network

By Atlantic Council

Sahar Halaimzai and Marika Theros recently established The Afghanistan Research Network (ARN) as a first step to preserve, sustain and amplify Afghan expertise and knowledge, and to provide analysis that can inform creative actions in the short-term while helping shape future prospects for a more stable and pluralistic Afghanistan in the long-term. The Afghanistan Research Network aims […]

Afghanistan Freedom and Prosperity

Event Recap

Aug 23, 2021

Event recap: “On the frontline: Protecting Afghanistan’s human rights defenders”

By Areeba Atique

On August 5th, 2021, the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, held a discussion with some of Afghanistan’s leading human rights defenders (HRDs) and experts to explore what lies ahead for the activists who put their lives on the line to fight impunity, militancy, and violence.

Afghanistan Human Rights

Marika Theros, PhD is a nonresident senior fellow at the Strategic Litigation Project and the director of the Civic Engagement Project (CEP), which jointly runs the Inside the Taliban’s Gender Apartheid initiative.  As part of CEP, she has advised on peace processes, ran track 1.5/2 processes, and supports coalition-building and communications strategies for women and civic leaders seeking inclusion, justice and human rights.  She is also a policy fellow at LSE IDEAS, London School of Economics and co-founder of the Civic Ecosystems Initiative.  

Her work focuses on political mobilization, human rights, global-local dynamics of violence and change, the politics of knowledge production, and peace process design support in the Balkans, Latin America, South Asia, the Middle East and Somalia. She completed her PhD at the London School of Economics, M.A. in International Affairs from Columbia University and MSc in Human Rights at LSE. She has published widely in academic journals, including International AffairsGlobal Policy, Peacebuilding, Journal of Human Rights, Journal of Civil Society, and Conflict, Security & Development. She serves on the boards of the Rahela Trust for Afghan Women’s Education, Women for Peace and Participation, and as an expert member of the Uplift Afghanistan Fund.