Throughout history it has been women’s lot to be oppressed by men. Such has been the custom in almost all societies. It is of course in the nature of males of many species, homo sapiens included, to compete for females and then dominate those they win. From chastity belts to burqas men have been inventive in safeguarding the instruments of their posterity.

Religion has often been applied to this end. God has been brought in as a security expert in keeping women confined and submissive. In the Bible, for instance, in his letter to Timothy, St. Paul advises, “Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” And in Ephesians 5:22-33 “ …wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” Ephesians is also where he instructs slaves to “obey your earthly masters with respect and fear.”

Slavery is long gone, but some religions continue to ensure that women don’t preach to men. The Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention are Christian examples.

Of all the faiths, Islam seems to produce the most egregious examples of misogynous practices. And no religion has ever equalled the oppression of women we see today in the Islamist nation of Afghanistan. Ruled by the fundamentalist Taliban, the country is a hellhole for women.

Afghan women face near total social, economic and political exclusion. They are allowed to work only if they are accompanied on their journey to work by a male. They are excluded from education after the sixth grade.

Women are forbidden from participation in the judicial system, including as judges, prosecutors or lawyers. There are no women in national or local decision-making bodies. Female doctors and midwives are necessary to deal with women, but they are not permitted to treat male patients or work with their male colleagues.

While Islamists have forced families to give them their unmarried daughters as brides, women have almost no recourse if they suffer sexualized violence. Although Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world, contraceptives are banned.

Already barred from raising their voices outside the home, women have now been forbidden from praying loudly or reciting the Quran in front of other women. Women who offend Sharia law can be publicly flogged and if the sin is adultery, stoned to death.

So far, Afghan women have stood alone, powerless to defend themselves from persecution and injustice. The international community has remained silent.

No longer. This week the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for the Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhunzada, and the head of Afghanistan’s Supreme Court, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, on charges of persecuting women and girls.

In a statement, the court stated the Taliban have “severely deprived, through decrees and edicts, girls and women of the rights to education, privacy and family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion.”

Karim Khan, the court’s chief prosecutor, said the warrants recognized that “Afghan women and girls as well as the LGBTQI+ community are facing an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban.”

Afghanistan’s two top leaders are now, as they deserve to be, wanted men. It’s up to the international community to fully support the ICC, including through concerted efforts to enforce the court’s warrants. Afghan women, like all of us, deserve the opportunity to lead safe, free and fulfilling lives.