Inside Geneva: what justice means for women in Afghanistan

Summary

Inside Geneva: What Justice Means for Women in Afghanistan

Podcast: Inside Geneva
Episode Date: March 3, 2026
Host: Imogen Foulkes (SWI swissinfo.ch)
Guests:

• Fereshta Abbasi (Afghanistan researcher, Human Rights Watch)
• Sahar Fetrat (Afghan feminist and activist)
• Daika Potzel (EU Ambassador to the UN, Geneva)

---

Overview

This episode of Inside Geneva focuses on the escalating human rights crisis for women and girls in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, with a special emphasis on the fight for justice and international accountability. Imogen Foulkes hosts a passionate discussion with Afghan women’s rights advocates and a European diplomat, exploring the lived realities in Afghanistan, recent international initiatives, and the urgent need for global solidarity and action.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Reality Under Taliban Rule

• Severe Restrictions:
  • Women banned from secondary and higher education, many types of work, leaving home unaccompanied, and public spaces like gyms, parks, and beauty salons (02:16).
  • New laws enforce covering women’s faces and silencing their voices (01:43, 08:57).
• Emotional Toll:
  • Atmosphere in Afghanistan described as “very dark,” with widespread depression and despair among women and girls (07:01).
  • Girls habitually attempt to prepare for school each day, only to recall that education is forbidden to them (07:26).
• Historical Perspective:
  • Afghan women anticipated the consequences of the Taliban’s return, citing personal and familial memories of past repression (07:26).

---

2. International Response and the Fight for Accountability

• UN Fact-Finding Mission:
  • In October 2025, at the EU’s urging, the UN Human Rights Council approved a mechanism to investigate abuses in Afghanistan (09:53, 12:21).
  • The mechanism remains unfunded and non-operational, with global attention and resources stretched thin (10:14, 11:56).
• The EU Perspective:
  • Ambassador Daika Potzel expresses shock and commitment:
    • “Hearing that women are not allowed to work, that they are not allowed to go outside on their own, that they have to completely cover up, that their voice is not... allowed to use their voice outside the house, that they are deprived of education, it's just so, so appalling...” (05:24)
  • Push for “accountability mechanisms”—holding perpetrators responsible and deterring further abuses (09:53).
• US Withdrawal and Global Climate:
  • US aid cuts have led to closure of hundreds of Afghan health facilities, intensifying the hardship (13:51).
  • The US has removed references to gender and diversity from humanitarian programs, complicating advocacy and assistance (13:20, 17:25).

---

3. The Importance and Limits of International Justice

• Impact of Documentation:
  • Fereshta Abbasi shares the hope that the fact-finding mission will document abuses and assign individual responsibility, breaking the "culture of impunity" (12:21).
  • Documentation provides hope, even without immediate change:
    • “Justice may not come to our lives today, but if our stories are recorded, we have a chance to get justice tomorrow...” -- Anonymous Afghan journalist, read by Fereshta Abbasi (27:32)
• Skepticism and Hope:
  • Legal efforts (like the Myanmar case at the ICJ) take years, but underscore that justice is possible, even if delayed (19:58).
  • The very act of resistance—maintaining hope—was described as essential:
    • “Having hope in the face of oppression is a form of resistance.” — Sahar Fetrat (21:35).

---

4. The Debate over "Gender Apartheid"

• Afghan Women’s Demands
  • Sahar Fetrat urges international bodies to listen to Afghan women who want “gender apartheid” recognized as a crime against humanity, with major legal, political, and moral implications (16:14).
  • The EU is cautious about officially using the term, though it advocates for women’s rights.

---

5. What Can the International Community and Individuals Do?

• Solidarity and Action:
  • Potzel urges listeners:
    • “Don’t complain, engage... There are so many NGOs active... Talk about it to family, to friends, make people aware... Write to media outlets. We here in Europe... can make our voices heard and be heard.” (25:14)
• Message to Afghan Women:
  • Potzel offers empathy and encouragement:
    • “I just wish them all the strength in the world... do not think that we have given up on you. We are watching and we are really carefully following what's going on.” (23:45)
• Personal Testimonies and the Power of Story:
  • Abbasi tells of an Afghan journalist in a rural area, whose hopes for justice are buoyed by international mechanisms that record her experience (26:16).
  • The act of telling and recording these stories is itself seen as resistance and a path towards eventual accountability.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On daily reality in Afghanistan:
  “They keep telling me that they live in a country that feels like an open prison that is getting tighter and more suffocating day by day, a system of total domination in every way possible.” — Sahar Fetrat (07:26)
• On the importance of accountability mechanisms:
  “The crucial issue really was accountability... those who perpetrate the crimes, they need to be held responsible.” — Daika Potzel (09:53)
• On what hope means:
  “Having hope in the face of oppression is a form of resistance.” — Sahar Fetrat (21:35)
• On the power of documentation:
  “Justice may not come to our lives today, but if our stories are recorded, we have a chance to get justice tomorrow.” — Anonymous journalist, via Fereshta Abbasi (27:32)
• On advocacy and engagement:
  “Don’t complain, engage... open your eyes and then do something.” — Daika Potzel (25:14)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:05] — Framing the crisis: Are we neglecting Afghan women’s rights?
• [05:24] — Daika Potzel on the shock of Taliban restrictions
• [06:20] — Fereshta Abbasi on the severity and breadth of restrictions
• [07:26] — Sahar Fetrat on daily emotional reality for Afghan women
• [09:53] — The creation and hopes for the UN fact-finding mission
• [12:21] — Abbasi on what the new mechanism could mean for accountability
• [16:14] — Debate over recognizing “gender apartheid”
• [19:58] — Potzel on justice and the Myanmar precedent
• [21:35] — Sahar on the mental health burden and hope as resistance
• [23:45] — Potzel’s message to the women of Afghanistan
• [25:14] — Advice to listeners on how to help
• [27:32] — Abbasi reads powerful message from an Afghan journalist
• [28:15] — Abbasi on her hope to one day return to Afghanistan

---

Conclusion

This episode delivers a moving, honest portrayal of the struggle faced by Afghan women—both in Afghanistan and in exile. It highlights the importance of international accountability and the role of solidarity from the broader public. The guests urge listeners to move beyond empathy and engage actively, while centering the voices and needs of Afghan women. The message is clear: action, hope, and the determination to document abuse—even if justice is long in coming—are critical forms of resistance.

---

Next Episode Preview:
March 17: A special report on the Myanmar genocide case at the International Court of Justice, focusing on women fighting for justice.

---

Transcript

[Daika Potzel]

The Swiss Connection Science Podcast is back

[Fereshta Abbasi]

with brand new stories.

[Daika Potzel]

They're all connected by one overarching the

[Fereshta Abbasi]

climate challenges we face today and the smart solutions that can help us tackle them. This season, we're diving into the depths

[Daika Potzel]

of Swiss lakes, where invasive mussels are

[Fereshta Abbasi]

threatening the delicate indigenous ecosystem. We'll also travel to the Arctic to

[Daika Potzel]

discover how ancient ice can reveal vital

[Fereshta Abbasi]

clues for pioneering climate research. And we'll explore the critical world of the semiconductor industry, looking at its global importance and Switzerland's potential role within it. All this and more is coming soon

[Daika Potzel]

in the new season of the Swiss Connection Science Podcast.

[Imogen Foulkes]

This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, Imogen folks, and this is a production from swissinfo, the international public media company of Switzerland. In today's program, the Taliban took power

[Daika Potzel]

three and a half years ago. The rules they first imposed still stand. Girls over 12 can't go to school and women are banned from many government jobs and from playing sports.

[Fereshta Abbasi]

This is time for the international community, for other countries, especially eu, to step in and to make sure that they are responding to the crisis in Afghanistan and they are standing with women of Afghanistan and to do anything they can to protect their rights. Concerns are growing over new Taliban laws

[Daika Potzel]

banning women's voices and bare faces in public in Afghanistan. UN officials say the rules extend the quote already intolerable restrictions on the rights of women and girls. As an ambassador and as woman, women have fought for decades, if not centuries for their rights. And that I also personally do not want to see a backpedaling on those rights that we have fought for for so long, that brave women before us have fought for so long.

[Imogen Foulkes]

Women are also banned from working in

[Fereshta Abbasi]

most sectors outside the home and are prohibited from places like gyms, parks and city salons.

[Sahar Fetrat]

Women and girls in Afghanistan, they resist in ways that are not shaping one movement. It's about thousand quiet and important uprisings or revolutions day to day to lead a kind of resistance that is fierce, that is creative, to show that they exist and that they will never accept that kind of domination.

[Daika Potzel]

We here in Europe, in Geneva, we have the wonderful opportunity to actually make our voices heard and to be heard. So use that chance, get engaged. So open your eyes and then do something.

[Imogen Foulkes]

Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva. I'm Imogen, folks. And today to coincide with the big spring session of the UN Human Rights Council and with International Women's Day, which we mark on March 8, we're going to talk about Afghanistan because as our attention, with good reason perhaps focuses on Ukraine or the Ongoing misery in Gaza or Sudan. Are we neglecting a really serious human rights crisis, one in which women are being suppressed to an unprecedented degree.

[Fereshta Abbasi]

Girls are banned from attending school beyond the sixth grade, and universities are off limits. This makes Afghanistan the only country with such harsh educational restrictions. Despite promises to reopen schools under Islamic Sharia laws, no steps have been taken to reintegrate women into educational institutions.

[Imogen Foulkes]

When the Taliban returned to power in 2021, I remember some people saying, well, this is a different Taliban. Perhaps we should give them a chance. This could be different. And anyway, the last Afghan government propped up by the west wasn't exactly great. But even then, Afghan women were warning us, and now they every right to say, we told you so. We'll be hearing from two Afghan women, both of them human rights defenders in this program.

[Fereshta Abbasi]

This is Fereshta Abbasi, and I am the Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch. I feel that if there is one place in this world that needs me the most is Afghanistan, and I am committed to be working on that. And I am hopeful that I will be able to go back and work from Afghanistan one day.

[Sahar Fetrat]

My name is Sahar Fatret. I'm a feminist from Afghanistan. I grew up in Kabul, and I think that was the most important time of my life, going to school and university as well. I remember having a lot of hopes for the future, believing in education, knowing that education will change the trajectory of my life. And it did. It really did. And looking back, I feel very lucky.

[Imogen Foulkes]

And from the European Union ambassador to the UN in Geneva, who is working hard to mobilize support for women in Afghanistan.

[Daika Potzel]

This is really a flagrant violation of human rights, basic human rights. Hearing that women are not allowed to work, that they are not allowed to go outside on their own, that they have to completely cover up, that their voice is not, or that they are not allowed to use their voice outside the house, that they are deprived of education, it's just so, so, so appalling and so shocking that I think the international community has all the facts on the table to say this is not acceptable at all.

[Imogen Foulkes]

Let's hear first from Fereshta Abazi of Human Rights Watch and Sahar Fetrat, both from Afghanistan, both now living in exile, both tireless in their determination to defend women's rights. But what they are hearing now from women still inside Afghanistan is, Fereshta says, chilling.

[Fereshta Abbasi]

Afghanistan has become the worst women's rights crisis in the world. In 2026, Afghanistan remains to be the only country in the world where its women and girls do not have access to secondary and higher education. Women face severe restrictions accessing employment. Women do not have the right to freedom of movement, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly. And this is something that we have been afgh. Been warning about since 2021 and the Taliban takeover.

[Interviewer]

Of course, you are from Afghanistan yourself, but you live in Britain now still. You have friends, I'm sure, relatives.

[Imogen Foulkes]

What are they telling you right now?

[Fereshta Abbasi]

There is an atmosphere of disappointment back home. The picture that I get from Afghanistan is very dark. People are really disappointed, very depressed. No one believes that things will get better under the tale. And that's very sa.

[Imogen Foulkes]

And Sahar adds, it's all the more dismaying because Afghan women themselves knew what was coming.

[Sahar Fetrat]

Afghan women had that experience from the past. Even if we didn't live through it ourselves, our mothers, our aunts, all the women in our communities lived through that. And they knew what it meant to live under a system of total male domination, Taliban domination and female suppression and oppression. So they did not hear Afghan women, despite all the advocacy, despite all the activism, and now people who are paying that cost day to day are Afghan women and girls. And they keep telling me that they live in a country that feels like an open prison that is getting tighter and more suffocating day by day, a system of total domination in every way possible. They tell me about how difficult it is to wake up every morning and to imagine a future, imagine a life, imagine being alive and living that day to day. A lot of young girls tell me that they wake up every day by habit, trying to get ready for school. And they face, day to day that sad reality that they can't because just because they're girls, they cannot go. So they face this every single day, that because they are girls or women, they are treated as less. Their existence is, in a way, illegitimate.

[Daika Potzel]

The Taliban have shut beauty salons where women could meet and work. And there have been more rules telling women how to dress in public, including Florida, fully covering their faces.

[Imogen Foulkes]

What does it feel like to feel your very existence is, as Sahar puts it, illegitimate for me, for many of you listening, I guess it's almost impossible to imagine such oppression. The very things that define our lives, school, work, sport, music, even just walking in a park, are now for Afghan women, forbidden. But in Europe, at least, there is a will to try to help. In October last year, at the urging of the European Union, the UN Human Rights Council approved a fact finding mission for Afghanistan. Djka Potzel is the EU ambassador in Geneva.

[Daika Potzel]

The crucial issue really was accountability and really the strong urge to have a better accountability mechanism, because those who perpetrate the crimes, they need to be held responsible. And this is actually the driving motive for us to have this mechanism in place.

[Imogen Foulkes]

So is it up and running?

[Interviewer]

What's it doing if it is and is it funded?

[Daika Potzel]

It's not up and running yet. You ask a very crucial question. That's the funding. And the High Commissioner will tell you that this is really the question. And we are looking into that. And of course, we hope for a lot of support by other member states as well, because this decision to establish this mechanism was made in consensus, so everybody agreed. And so we hope, of course, that more countries will come up with money to actually finance it.

[Interviewer]

We see one traditionally particularly large contributor to UN human rights and other UN work, that is the United States pulling away their recent announcement of this $2 billion. It specifically rules out Afghanistan. What do you think about that? I mean, you know, the US was militarily so present in Afghanistan for so long. How do you judge that particular stamps now?

[Daika Potzel]

We shouldn't sort of mingle or confuse the different areas. So the 2 billion are on humanitarian assistance and we hear that the US is now coming back with even more. So that is a very good sign. On the other hand, yes, you are very right, they withdrew from the Human Rights Council and for us, this is still a very, very important instrument that we have. We are very committed to defending human rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So as the also with regards to Afghanistan, we stay engaged. Right? So we still have a mission there, a diplomatic mission. No other European country has that, but the EU is there, which helps us to really be on the ground, understand what people need, and also of course, oversee the project. So we want to do what we can do.

[Imogen Foulkes]

But as we heard there, the fact finding mission is not up and running yet. It's not funded. And we know UN Human Rights, like the rest of the un, is suffering a huge cash. Cris Fareshte Abazi of Human Rights Watch worked tirelessly to get the mechanism created and celebrated its agreement last October. She remains hopeful about what it can achieve.

[Fereshta Abbasi]

It's definitely an investment for the future of Afghanistan. It's an investment for accountability. On October 6, 2025, the culture of impunity was broken in Afghanistan, which means that this mechanism will be able to investigate human rights abuses and to identify perpetrators, something that no other instit has done for Afghanistan for decades. But I also believe that this could have an important deterrent effect on the ground. For example, as we Know that the rules are not being implemented in a unified way all over the country. There are some spaces in some provinces of Afghanistan and we're hoping that this mechanism, the fact that this mechanism will document and will identify individual criminal responsibility for the Taliban leaders and their authorities in different provinces will give them a pause for second thought before implementing these abusive policies, especially against women and girls.

[Interviewer]

How do you think the international climate is though now for drawing attention to a situation like this? Afghanistan does seem to have slipped down the agenda. We have in the United States, an administration which is removing references to gender and diversity from any humanitarian programs it supports, has said it won't support any anyway for Afghanistan. Does that make your task more difficult?

[Fereshta Abbasi]

It's very unfortunate to hear that, but also to really think what impact can that have on the ground for people's daily lives. So since the US aid cats in Afghanistan, at least 400 health facilities have been closed. So it definitely makes it more difficult for us. But I also hope that this is time for the international community, for other countries especially to step in and to make sure that they are responding to the crisis in Afghanistan and they are standing with women of Afghanistan and to do anything they can to protect their rights. One of the reasons that the Afonso Society believed that this is needed for Afghanistan was because of the culture of impunity that had been ongoing in the country for decades. There had never been a mechanism that could document abuses and could identify perpetrators. For the past last four and a half years, organizations had been reporting about the Taliban coming up with all these abusive laws and restrictions. But who actually the Taliban are, who within the Taliban leadership is responsible for all of these abuses? We didn't have names, so that's why this mechanism is very powerful. It will go after the Taliban authorities, it will go after individuals and it will identify individual criminal responsibilities. It sends a strong message back to the Taliban in Afghanistan that even their leadership can no longer protect them.

[Imogen Foulkes]

And Sahar too is really hoping for accountability.

[Sahar Fetrat]

Obviously, I welcome it. Like other Afghans, I think it's important because Afghanistan has been going through decades of impunity and lack of accountability. And I think that's the reason why, one of the reasons why we are where we are today, it's really important to collect and safeguard evidence before it's very late. It's important for this mechanism to work, work towards accountability and justice and to have a gender responsive and victim centered approach and with a scope that goes beyond what's happening now. And it looks at different crimes committed by different Actors.

[Imogen Foulkes]

What about this term, gender apartheid? The eu, although it wants this fact finding mission to focus particularly on the situation of women, it doesn't want to use this term. What do you think about that?

[Sahar Fetrat]

Well, if, if, if people are really serious about supporting Afghan women and understand their struggles and, and be helpful, they need to understand and learn from the past that they should listen to Afghan women and to listen to Afghan women and to hear them is to acknowledge their demand. And Afghan women have been for years talking about, even in the 90s, have been talking about gender apartheid and the crime of apartheid. When Afghan women are asking for gender apartheid to be recognized as a crime against humanity, it's important because they know that it will have major legal, political and moral implications.

[Imogen Foulkes]

Legal, moral and political implications. How likely is that really, given the current geopolitical climate? I had another question for Ambassador Djka

[Interviewer]

Pozel youl did say Europe wants to do what it can do. Coming back to the United States, Again, be honest with me. Have you got a listening ear there about the situation for women in Afghanistan?

[Imogen Foulkes]

Because we are seeing the US put

[Interviewer]

a red line through mentions of gender and diversity in nearly all non governmental organization and UN programs.

[Daika Potzel]

Yeah, we should talk to our American colleagues about all the situation in Afghanistan and we still have a good dialogue on those issues. That does not mean that that will reverse their take on certain issues. But it is still possible to have that dialogue and we of course very much welcome that. And we use those channels to make our points and to explain how we look at the situation and what we feel needs to be done to hopefully improve that.

[Imogen Foulkes]

All right, well, just take your ambassador's

[Interviewer]

hat off for a minute. Are you dismayed as a woman that the debate has entered this kind of zone?

[Daika Potzel]

What kind of zone?

[Interviewer]

Well, where references to supporting women's rights are basically actively disapproved of by big international powers.

[Daika Potzel]

Well, I keep saying as an ambassador and as a woman that women have fought for decades, if not centuries for their rights and that I also personally do not want to see a backpedaling on those rights that we have fought for for so long, that brave women before us have fought for so long. So I think I'm, I try to be very vocal about that also in my private conversations or in my work conversations also with other colleagues because really it is something that's very close to my heart to defend women's rights here. But also, of course, in contexts like Afghanistan, there's no way around it. Yeah, but we have those frank conversations and you can still have them and as a woman, I definitely feel that we have to have them, particularly with proponents of a different view with men, but also with women who are also part of that conversation of the other take on things. Let me put it like this.

[Interviewer]

Right at the beginning, you talked about pushing for the mechanism because you want to ensure accountability.

[Imogen Foulkes]

Do you think that's likely? I mean, we see that can take

[Interviewer]

a very long time. But, for example, we have the Myanmar case at the ICJ right now. Women have gone there after almost a decade of waiting. Does that give you heart?

[Daika Potzel]

Absolutely. And I'm really, truly, very impressed with what happened in the Hague and that the court proceedings are ongoing in the case of Myanmar and the Rohingya crisis. Of course. And I can see your skepticism right, on the Afghanistan mechanism as well. Yet I think it is definitely a sign of hope for victims. It is a possibility also to show perpetrators you are not going unwatched. And particularly something like the Myanmar case now shows, even if you think, you know, it's been 20 years, it's been 10 years, or what have you, there is justice coming. And for people today, for perpetrators today, to understand that this is a possibility is, I think, already a powerful sign. So not doing it, to me is not an option, really. We need instruments, instruments that show victims we are with you and we want you to succeed making your case. And to the perpetrators, really, to show them you are being watched and justice will be coming.

[Imogen Foulkes]

Justice will be coming. That's a hopeful thought. But these cases are notorious for how long they take. The brave Rohingya women testifying at the International Court of Justice in the genocide case against Myanmar had to wait, wait almost 10 years. And by the way, our next Inside Geneva out on March 17 is all about that case. Will Afghan women have to wait so long? How does Sahar see the future?

[Sahar Fetrat]

Well, I often want to believe that having hope in the face of oppression is a form of resistance. And I mostly try to live like that. But sometimes it's really hard to stay committed to that. Because in reality, right now, looking at Afghanistan, I'm really worried about the future of my people. And I can't imagine what the country would look like in 10 years, in 15 and 20 and 30 years. And I think that is something that takes my. My sleep away at night, and it makes me really anxious. But ultimately, I know that, you know, it's important to have all the international mechanisms and systems in place and advocate for better Afghanistan, because Afghanistan is a collective mess and it's everyone's responsibility. But I also firmly believe that the future of Afghanistan will be shaped by its people. And as, as women of Afghanistan, I think we've thoroughly understood what oppression is and what it means and how it's connected to the state and to the Taliban. And I think it's time for Afghan men to understand that and to understand that if women are oppressed, they are oppressed as well. I think the country will change once that understanding is shared by many, many people in Afghanistan. And, yeah, the oppressors will, will not stay there forever. But it's important that we understand what it takes and that it takes a crack, cracks from within to end the oppression.

[Imogen Foulkes]

So support from the UN get that fact finding mission up and running, please support women in Afghanistan so they can perhaps create some of those cracks Sahar talked about. But I imagine many of our listeners are also wondering what they individually can do to. Ambassador Daika Potzel has some suggestions, but first she has a message direct to Afghan women and girls.

[Daika Potzel]

I can just say that I deeply admire their resilience and their strength. It's for me, very difficult to imagine what it's like to live in those circumstances. And we hear about, you know, growing numbers of suicide by women, and it's so shocking. So I just wish them all the strength in the world. I wish that they have the strength not to give up hope that things might change and that they get back to a life where they can enjoy all the human rights that we all agreed upon and that they can live their life and their future, shape their future the way they want by having a decent education, going to university, becoming a doctor, a lawyer, a filmmaker, a nurse, whatever they wish their life to be like, wishing them all the very best. And to say, do not think that we have given up on you. We are watching and we are really carefully following what's going on. And we really help you. We want to help you. And we do that in the framework that we can.

[Interviewer]

But we are there with you on Inside Geneva. A lot of our listeners are women. Many of them will be asking, what can I do to help. They read about what's happening in Afghanistan. They are angry, upset about it. What could they actually do? I mean, it's just as, you know,

[Imogen Foulkes]

some normal person, teacher, social worker.

[Daika Potzel]

Yeah, I always keep telling also, younger people, don't complain, engage. There are so many NGOs active in that field. So if this is really close to your heart, look for one which is close to you and then get engaged. Talk about it. Talk about it to family, talk about it to friends. Make people aware of what you are concerned about and what the situation is. Write to media outlets, tell them, you know, I want to read more about this. And I'm appalled by the situation and I didn't like that report or whatever. So we here in Europe, in Geneva, we have the wonderful opportunity to actually make our voices heard and to be heard. So use that chance, get engaged. So I think there's plenty of opportunity. Open your eyes and then can do something.

[Imogen Foulkes]

Fereshta Abbasi is doing something and she's not giving up. She has a message from the women who are still inside Afghanistan whose hopes are invested in justice, if not now, then in the future.

[Fereshta Abbasi]

Last October, I was actually approached by one of the female journalists from quite a rural area of Afghanistan, not in one of the big cities. She was living in one of the rural provinces of Afghanistan and she apparently had watched one of the side events they had spoken at, talking about the mechanism. I remember that day walking out of the UN building, receiving a text message from her saying that she had watched the side event and she had thought about it and she thinks that this mechanism will really make a change on the ground for women. And I asked her about it. I asked her if she can give us a quote because she told me that she is in the country, she doesn't have a voice. And she asked me to speak for women of Afghanistan. And, and for me that was quite an emotional moment because she was a journalist. I mean, she gave us an eloquent quote about what this mechanism means. She basically said that this mechanism will give hope to the women of Afghanistan. They know that if their stories are being recorded, that the pain that they're going through these days is not erasable and it will be documented somewhere. This will give them hope to survive these days.

[Interviewer]

And in fact, you have that quote with you. Why don't you, you read it for us?

[Sahar Fetrat]

Sure.

[Fereshta Abbasi]

Okay. Let's hope it's not going to make me emotional because every time I read the code, I became emotional. Justice may not come to our lives today, but if our stories are recorded, we have a chance to get justice tomorrow. That's why this mechanism is needed. This will give us hope and strength to endure these difficult days, knowing that we will be able to hold some of the Talmud leaders accountable, that these crimes are not forgettable and that our suffering is not erased.

[Interviewer]

You've waited several years for this fact finding mission. What are your hopes now?

[Imogen Foulkes]

I'm sure you would at some point

[Interviewer]

like to go back to your country.

[Imogen Foulkes]

Do you see that? I mean, how do you see the

[Interviewer]

future for Afghanistan in the next 10 years?

[Fereshta Abbasi]

It's very difficult to answer this question. Imagine if somebody asked this question from me in 2020. I could not see the August 2021 coming like that. But I am still hopeful and I want to go back. I definitely want to go back to Afghanistan. The reason that I still work on the country is because I feel that if there is one place in this world that needs me the most is Afghanistan. And I am committed to be working on that. And I am hopeful that I will be able to go back and work from Afghanistan one day.

[Daika Potzel]

Foreign.

[Imogen Foulkes]

And that brings us to the end of this edition of Inside Geneva. We hope you enjoyed the podcast and that you were inspired by the courage and determination of Foreshta and Sahar. A reminder that next time on Inside Geneva, we'll be bringing you an in depth report on the case of genocide against Myanmar currently underway at the International Court of Justice, where women are fighting for justice for women.

[Fereshta Abbasi]

If you are in that court, I can assure you international law is alive and it is fighting very hard.

[Imogen Foulkes]

That's out on March 17th. Do join us then. A reminder, you've been listening to Inside Geneva, a Swiss info production. You can subscribe to us and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Check out our previous episodes, how the International Red Cross Unites Prisoners of War with Their Families or why Survivors of Human Rights Violations Turn to the UN In Geneva for Justice. I'm in Imogen folks, thanks again for listening.