Last weekend, on the international day of education, UN agencies sounded the alarm on a situation that is far too neglected. It was just over four years ago that Afghanistan’s Taliban government banned all girls from secondary education. Since then it has extended the ban to include higher education. In a situation that has been rightly condemned as “gender apartheid”, the UN tells us that a staggering 2.2 million girls have been denied their chance at school.

The waves of repression, which should be classified by United Nations legal authorities as a crime against humanity, mark the victory of the extreme Kandahar clerical faction over Kabul-based government ministers. They are also part of the plan of supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada to erase girls and women from public life.

The appalling situation exposes, too, the miscalculations and errors being made by foreign governments that, even as the regime has stepped up the suppression of women, have recently sought to rebuild diplomatic relations with the Taliban regime. Four-and-a-half years into the Taliban’s ascent to power, more children than ever are being denied education.

In successive edicts since 2021, women have now been banned from universities and most employment, including with the government and NGOs. They have been required to cover their faces, to be accompanied by male relatives for any long-distance travel, and have been warned they face arrest if seen in public spaces such as parks, gyms and beauty salons.

This appeasement of the Taliban, led by Russia, China and India and followed by some European governments, has led Afghans’ religious rulers to believe they can act with impunity.

December saw the arrest of a female journalist, Nazira Rashidi, in the northern........

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