As the Taliban step up their war on women and girls, it is clear that appeasement has failed | Gordon Brown

Major powers have renewed diplomatic links while others seek deals to deport migrants. And all the while gender repression is getting worse

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fghanistan’s Taliban government has now issued its most extreme edict yet. It is already the only regime in the world where girls are excluded from secondary education. Now it has gone further, debarring all Afghan women from any contact with schools or education and doubling down on what has been rightly condemned as “gender apartheid”.

This latest wave of repression, which is likely to be classified by United Nations legal authorities as a crime against humanity, marks the victory of the extreme Kandahar clerical faction over Kabul-based government ministers. It is also the latest step in the plan of supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada to erase girls and women from public life.

This new ruling 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. A total of 2.2 million girls have been excluded from secondary education, and up to 2.3 million primary school-age children are no longer attending lessons.