UK urged to help lead fight against Taliban's 'gender apartheid'

Published: 22:06, 15 August 2026 | Updated: 22:21, 15 August 2026 The Taliban celebrated five years as rulers of Afghanistan on Saturday in defiance of condemnation that it enforces ‘gender apartheid’. The commemoration included a Kabul military parade in which Humvee trucks abandoned in the chaotic withdrawal of a US-led coalition force were rolled out as victory trophies. The authorities also hosted a cricket match and other sporting contests, events from which women and girls were banned even from attending. Leading women’s rights campaigner and Labour peer Baroness Helena Kennedy said Britain should put pressure on allies such as India and Qatar, who maintain contact with the Taliban. She told Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘What is happening is gender apartheid. The extremes against women are extraordinary. ‘You apply pressure [through] the people who are speaking to, and who are in contact with, the leadership there. You try to drive a wedge between the people who are more progressive and those who are still in the Dark Ages.’ Patriotic music blared across streets as Afghans packed into pick-up trucks and rickshaws in convoys festooned with government flags. One car displayed a photo of Taliban leader Mullah Omar alongside Osama bin Laden. A convoy of Taliban paraded in front of the former US embassy building on Saturday as they celebrated the fifth anniversary of their return to power Such is the extreme interpretation of Islamic law – enforced through hundreds of edicts handed down by the regime’s reclusive emir Hibatullah Akinhundzada – that women are excluded from public areas and most places of work. Girls are denied an education in mainstream schools beyond age 12 although religious madrasas still take girls of all ages. Diplomats say promises to defend women’s rights, made by the Taliban after its fighters took control in a lightning offensive, have been abandoned with the infiltration into government of an extremist elite. Britain, which also withdrew troops in the 2021 exodus, is among Western countries which have closed embassies in Kabul. With Afghan assets frozen in European banks, there is growing concern that isolating the Taliban is failing to deliver change. It is estimated that 22 million Afghans – half the population – rely on some form of foreign aid to stay alive. Outside influence is now largely in the hands of India, China, Russia, Qatar and the UAE. One Western diplomat said the US decision to close its Agency for International Development, which once led the world’s approach on almost every Afghan issue, was the ‘real diplomatic gap’. The diplomat told the BBC: ‘It’s extraordinary given the scale of Western effort from 2001 to 2021 how ignored Afghanistan is now.’