Survivors and gender justice practitioners meet as ICC unseals four arrest warrants for gender persecution

PRESS RELEASE – 9 October 2026

The Hague – One day before gender justice practitioners, survivors and advocates from across Asia, the Pacific and beyond gathered in the Hague for the Gender Justice in International Criminal Law Conference 2026, the International Criminal Court unsealed four arrest warrants in the Situation in Afghanistan. They are the first warrants at an international court framed entirely around gender persecution, and the first to recognise the persecution of people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

That timing set the terms of the two days. The real difficulty, participants heard, was not establishing that violations had occurred, but carrying the daily reality of women’s lives in Afghanistan into a charge sheet a Chamber would accept.

According to ISS Professor of International Law and Development Karin Arts, overall, this conference has been an amazing opportunity to reflect on historical and current achievements and challenges in the sphere of gender justice, which is so acutely under pressure all over the world. Learning from situated examples, joint analysis, sharing of experiences, and networking provided important foundations for identifying or strengthening strategic actions and responses.

The conference, attended by over 200 people, opened into a far less favourable landscape than the warrants alone suggest. Courts and mechanisms working on gender crimes are facing sanctions, funding withdrawal and political pressure. Participants reported from Colombia, where a transitional tribunal has opened a case on gender-based violence while its independence and budget are contested; from Iran, where a UN fact-finding mission concluded in 2025 that LGBTQI+ persons were among the victims of crimes against humanity, with no prosecutorial route available; from Türkiye, where activists and the people who document violations have been arrested and the courts are themselves the instrument of repression; and from Myanmar, where communities awaiting a judgment from the International Court of Justice described years of being treated as evidence while being asked to wait, with funding and rations shrinking around them. Across the Asia-Pacific, the region least represented among States Parties to the Rome Statute, four ICC situations are currently open.

“In January, for the first time ever, a hijra (transgender) Rohingya victim, represented by LAW, sat in the ICJ and faced the Myanmar agent representing those who sexually abused her and carried out the genocidal campaign against her community”, recalls Antonia Mulvey, LAW’s Executive Director. “Her courage was a significant step for gender justice. But much more needs to be done. From Afghanistan to Ukraine and Sudan, sexual and gender-based violence is increasingly and deliberately used as a tool of repression, to instill fear, and can be an indicator of genocidal intent. Despite certain progress in identifying the harms faced by women, girls, and LGBTQI+ individuals, they continue to remain the most impacted by these crimes.”

The strongest thread across the two days came from survivors themselves. Afghans asked what justice would mean to them, named access to education alongside the restoration of their dignity. Survivors from several countries said that what they wanted from their governments was an apology. Court recognition was described repeatedly as a beginning rather than an end, and sessions on people’s tribunals set out what documentation and memory can hold where formal accountability is unavailable. The point returned in almost every room: survivors are not only a source of evidence, and the definition of what justice means belongs to them.

“These two days were about shaping a vision of a world that actually delivers gender justice”, said Michelle Jarvis, Executive Director of the Gender Justice Practitioner Hub. “I saw it everywhere: in advocates who have led this work for decades, and in people’s tribunals that built their own courtrooms where formal justice fell short. A better future is already here, just not yet evenly distributed.”

“These two days have been a reminder that, in uncertain and challenging times, progress towards a gender-just world requires working together more deliberately. It requires solidarity, learning from one another, and valuing institutions and grassroots initiatives alike to shift what is possible. It means pushing for change despite the challenges, or perhaps because of them. The work may be harder, but it has never mattered more,” said Valeria Babără, Legal Adviser at Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice. 

What the organisers are asking for

States should match commitment with resources: Gender expertise at international institutions remains small relative to the caseload. States that support this work can second gender experts, fund the mechanisms carrying it, and defend the independence and the budgets of the courts now under pressure. Good law does not produce prosecutions on its own.

Survivors belong at the start of a process, not at the end: Accountability frameworks should be designed with the people they are meant to serve, and should make room for the forms of recognition survivors themselves name.

ENDS

Note to editors

The Gender Justice in International Criminal Law Conference 2026 took place in The Hague on 6 and 7 October 2026, convened by Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice, the Gender Justice Practitioner Hub, Legal Action Worldwide, and the International Institute of Social Studies.

Legal Action Worldwide (LAW) is a frontline, women-led non-profit of human rights lawyers providing legal assistance and representation to victims and survivors in fragile and conflict-affected contexts across the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Asia, with a particular focus on gender-based violence and gender equality.

Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice is an international feminist organisation founded in 2004 and based in The Hague, working globally to advance gender justice through the law, with a particular focus on international criminal law and accountability for gender-based harm.

The Gender Justice Practitioner Hub (GJP Hub) is a Geneva-based non-profit technical expertise hub, a docking station working with practitioners globally to strengthen gender justice outcomes for conflict-related crimes and other mass human rights violations. The Hub works across four pillars: connecting practitioners; building an accessible global repository of expertise; strategic support for concrete justice opportunities; and systems interventions in support of strengthened gender justice. gjphub.org

The International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) is a graduate school of Erasmus University Rotterdam based in The Hague. The Erasmus Legal Mobilisation Platform, hosted by the ISS, bridges academic research and legal practice in the service of rights and accountability.

For more information, please contact:

Lucien Christen, Global Communications Manager, [email protected], +41765343816