Afghan women still living under 'gender apartheid regime' as Western countries don't put enough pressure on 'lying' Taliban, Afghan human rights defender says

Afghanistan’s status as the only country in the world where women and girls are prevented from being educated will only change if countries with the leverage apply the required pressure, according to the leading Afghan human rights activist Horia Mosadiq.

Speaking in Ireland last night, she said, “There has to be consistency. There has to be conditionality. The Taliban have to feel the pressure - but they have not felt the pressure yet.”

She branded the Taliban as “liars” who would promise reform in the future by “writing on the ice and then putting it under the sun.”

Women and girls are now banned from education beyond the age of six and face restrictions on their clothing, employment, and their basic freedom of movement and expression.

Women who have lost their jobs and become destitute can no longer even beg on the streets.

Under the Taliban, she said there has also been a rise in sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls, as well as honour killings, and impunity for the male offenders is standard.

The only thing the Taliban was doing, apart from oppressing, was establishing religious schools for women and girls which the campaigner feared would become a breeding ground for radicalisation into the future.