Afghan women’s rights organisations have issued a forceful appeal to international legal and human rights institutions to initiate legal proceedings against Cheryl Benard, an American commentator and wife of former US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, for what they describe as whitewashing the Taliban regime’s brutal repression of women and girls.
In a joint open letter signed by 64 Afghan women-led civil society groups, calls were made to the International Criminal Court, the United Nations, the European Union, the US government, and global human rights bodies to investigate and prosecute Benard for “denial of gender-based violence” and “complicity in crimes against humanity.” The organisations condemned her recent statements as a dangerous distortion of reality that attempts to normalise systemic gender apartheid in Afghanistan.
Benard has publicly claimed that Afghan women are not excluded from society, that they continue to live and work normally, and that it is now safe for refugees to return—statements that directly contradict multiple reports by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan, UNAMA, Amnesty International, and other reputable international watchdogs.
“By denying these crimes, discrediting internationally verified reports and promoting return to a regime of systemic violence, Cheryl Benard stands as a complicit actor,” the letter reads. The groups argue that her assertions not only ignore the lived experiences of countless Afghan women but also embolden a regime that has systematically dismantled women’s rights, banned female education, barred women from public life, and inflicted daily psychological and physical abuse on half the population.
Signatories of the letter further emphasised Benard’s close personal and political ties to Khalilzad, whose negotiations with the Taliban culminated in the 2020 Doha Agreement. They warned that her remarks appear to serve a broader political agenda aimed at rehabilitating the Taliban’s international image while silencing the voices of Afghan women survivors.
The organisations called for media scrutiny of Benard’s comments and a strong international stance against the normalisation of gender-based oppression in Afghanistan. They underscored the urgency of upholding human rights standards and ensuring accountability for those who, directly or indirectly, enable regimes of terror.
