EDINBURGH – As we enter a new year, 2.13 million primary-school-aged children remain out of school in Afghanistan, while 2.2 million girls have been excluded from secondary education since the Taliban’s 2021 ban, part of a broader campaign to erase women from public life. But despite this egregious abuse of human rights (which Richard Bennett, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, has labeled “gender apartheid”), countries have begun resuming relations with the Taliban regime.

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The UN mission to Afghanistan noted in a 2025 human-rights report that the Taliban regime has intensified its restrictions on girls and women. International negotiations, including the Doha meetings hosted by the UN and Qatar, have made no progress on the matter, owing to the Taliban’s insistence on excluding women’s organizations from any talks and refusal even to discuss girls’ rights. Given this, it is hardly surprising that global mediators and the Taliban have not established a........

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