We change the wind direction, We bring the winds down from the northWest, and so things are going to feel very different. Temperatures, if anything, looks set to drop back to values below the average for the time of year, and it will still be quite unsettled. ShoWers or longer spells of rain and often breezy. Welcome to hardtalk. Im stephen sackur. To be female in afghanistan is to be condemned to a life without visibility, agency or rights. The Taliban Regime requires women to conceal their faces, bodies, even their voices in public. They must never look at a man outside theirfamily, nor ever sing or read aloud. The Un Secretary general calls it systemic gender apartheid. But still it continues. And still, taliban officials conduct a dialogue with international counterparts. My guest is fawzia koofi, former Deputy Speaker of the Afghan Parliament. What is the right international approach to afghanistan . Fawzia koofi, Welcome to hardtalk. Thank you for having me. Its a great pleasure to have you in the hardtalk studio. It is now three years since taliban rule was restored in afghanistan. They have just passed a raft of new so called Vice And Virtue measures in kabul. Tell me about the impact of those measures, as you see it. You have put it very rightly after the, you know, three years since the Taliban Regime was restored. This is the right way to put it, because many people think, say, um, three years since the taliban victory, since they have taken poWer. Ijust believe its three years since afghanistan was handed over to taliban because of the moral defeat by all of us, especially International Community. Now, the new law. Youre talking about the Decision Led by the united states of the Western Nations whod been backing the afghan government to withdraw their troops, which, of course, then led to the collapse of the Afghan National Army and the taliban moving back in to kabul. Exactly. So the withdrawal was like the last stage. Obviously, things started to move in a direction that was in the desire of the taliban from the time that negotiation with the taliban started, excluding the government of afghanistan, excluding the society of afghanistan, the women of afghanistan. Hang on, you say exclusion, but i have to intervene. You Were part of that dialogue. You Went to doha. You Were one of, i believe, four women who actually spoke direct to the taliban back in 2020. Correct. I was one of the four women negotiated with taliban, with the hope that We will be able to come to some sort of political agreement where taliban will accept coexistence. But, by the time i Went to doha, i already realised, as We started the first day, that its too late because the taliban have already signed a political agreement with The Americans, on the basis of which the united states said they will withdraw, and The Americans should actually, you know. The taliban should pursue a political process while im talking about the process, until We got to that negotiation, the government of afghanistan was excluded from the negotiation betWeen americans and the taliban. You know, in a war, you have all the parties to the war. The government of afghanistan was the main party to the war, where We lost more than 120,000 of our troops every day. And people that i knew, they actually Were hired with my recommendation in the army and police. Young men, educated, highly capable. They lost their lives into this war. But We Were not then part of the Decision Making on how do We want this Peace Process to be shaped and designed . I want to get to the present in afghanistan as quick as possible. But what youre saying is really important. Ijust need to know from you on reflection, now that Were three years back into taliban rule in your country, do you believe you made a mistake getting drawn in to that engagement with the taliban back in 2020 . Because, in a sense, you opened a door to them. You offered them a form of legitimisation, which they certainly leapt upon and used to its maximum advantage. Legitimisation was given to them by the International Community, who portraited an image of taliban 2. 0, a moderate taliban. And that image was created in a way that We Were all trapped into that narrative, that We believed taliban have changed. Taliban are 2. 0. Did you believe it . When i Went to them to meet them before the negotiation in moscow in 2019 and this is on the record the taliban said they have agreed to women to continue their education up to phd, on the record, the taliban negotiations, very high level, who are in the taliban ministerial position now, said they want women to be working, including be the prime minister. So, obviously, when somebody makes that kind of public statement, you tend to believe them because We had a good faith for this negotiation. So here We are today. Given what youve just said, you Were lied to. What is the impact of i believe its the 35 different new articles of so called Vice And Virtue rules which, as i said at the very beginning, do the most extraordinary things. They ban women from notjust showing theirface in public, but from looking directly into the eyes of any man who is not a member of their family. They ban women from singing or reading aloud, even in their own homes. There are a whole raft of measures. Whats the impact and the effect on Women Today . So this piece of paper, which they call it the Vice And Virtue law, is a paper that actually impacts the Womans Life on a daily basis. I was talking to the women to a woman, for instance i was talking to her and she was like, i Went out of my home to get a taxi because she lost her husband in the war. Like me, shes a single mother of three children. Her son is only five years old. She wanted to take a taxi to go and buy groceries. And the taxi. She stopped three taxis. The taxidriver said, sorry, i cannot take you. And this is what happened to me personally in 1997, when they imprisoned my husband, no taxi would stop for me. And i know, what does it mean. When, of course, the taliban was in poWer then. In poWer for the first time. She stopped three taxis. No taxi would stop. And one guy who was kind enough, he said, i can take you, but you need to introduce yourself as my sister, and i will introduce you me as your brother. But you have to pay me triple times more. This is in a time that women have zero income. Maybe 95 of women in afghanistan have zero income because they are basically erased from the work space. So this law is actually yet another extreme suppression on womens rights. So women are pretty much confined to their home space. They are not educated beyond the age of 12. And, yet, in the last three years, Weve seen an end to active street protest, to women raising their voices against these measures. Is that the success of repression . I dont think so. I think still there are small groups of women that protest in different provinces. The media is extremely censored. So, thanks to social media, thanks to the technology and this is what i told taliban in 2019 when i met them in dialogue i said, if you try to bring your draconian repressive measures back, every person in afghanistan is a journalist. They have a phone, they have Internet Connectivity with the rest of the world that they will talk about what you bring to them. So thats whats happening. In some provinces, still, there are small protests. People protest in their own way, indoor protest, writing on social media, resisting in their own way by going to education centres, all the District Education centres, resisting in their own way, going to the offices, although its not alloWed for women, that is that requires a lot of courage. What about underground schooling . I know way back when the taliban was first in poWer, you Were involved in a sort of secret school movement. Is that resuming . Are there efforts to educate girls beyond the age of 12 today in afghanistan . There are. There are a lot of efforts and ongoing activities in several provinces in afghanistan. Im also involved in that. To provide education beyond grade 6 for girls, provide language training, provide skills training for women, be it online or in person with a lot of, you know, cautious because it is not easy. Youre putting, are you not, everybody involved in those sorts of initiatives in Grave Danger . But. We, i, outside the country, in exile, my sister is inside the country. We dont have anything to lose, stephen. We have lost everything. We have lost everything. What do We. . What do We. . I lost my identity. I lost my identity. I lost my country. I lost my country. Women in afghanistan even women in afghanistan even lost their right to be lost their right to be visible as a Human Being. Visible as a Human Being. That was recorded by un what else do We have to lose . What else do We have to lose . So that Risk Worth it so that Risk Worth it thats what they tell me. Thats what they tell me. Heres one really disturbing survey heres one really disturbing survey that was recorded by un workers inside afghanistan. They found that 76 of afghan women and girls who responded to their questions about Mental Health said that they would describe their own Mental Health now as bad or very bad, and reported rates of insomnia, depression, anxiety, total loss of appetite that suggests that females in afghanistan are going through the most traumatic, terrible experience. What else could We expect . If you start your day by looking at the walls of your home with no hope, and you end your day in the same place, what hope you can have to keep your Mental Health in a better situation . Will become a doctor, One Day will become a journalist, One Day. Sometimes they tell me, One Day, We wanted to be like you. Be able to raise my own voice and use my voice as a poWer. But now, they are not even alloWed to raise their voice in public because the taliban are so scared of womens voices. They have literally announced a full fledged war against women. But it should be said, the taliban says it is doing the will of god as it interprets it. Today, afghanistan is a theocratic state. The Vice And Virtue minister, mohammad khalid hanafi, says, We are committed to assure all the rights of women based on islamic law. Is afghanistan the only muslim country on the planet . Why its not happening in the rest of Muslim World . If you see figures in the neighbouring countries of afghanistan, there are more female in universities and education institutions than male in some of these regional countries, which is also not democracy as such. If you look, some of these women in poWer and politics, We have women, muslim women who are foreign ministers, prime ministers, even president s. So my question to the Muslim World, especially to the Muslim World, to the oic members, is that why are they allowing taliban to misrepresent our religion . 0ur Religion is about co existence. In fact, taliban actually apply the same rules and policies that existed before islam emerged in some of the arab world. They are actually taking afghanistan back to before islam. And i dont know why the Muslim World thinks that its ok, because lets not forget, We all have a small group of conservative in our society that could be inspired by taliban, that could endanger the National Security of our countries. And thats why i think the Muslim World especially must raise their voice in solidarity with the true islam. You talk about the Muslim World. Lets talk about the wider International Community. We know that earlier this summer, there was a meeting in doha, a sort of Dialogue Meeting in which taliban representatives met with representatives of more than 20 international nations. The idea was to focus on those areas of discussion where there might be some sort of common ground. It was about opening up the private sector of the afghan economy to try and help the people of your country who are Desperate Forjobs and economic growth. And there was also a focus on counter narcotics. What there was not was any discussion of womens rights. Did you support the opening of some sort of dialogue or not . I think all of these issues that was discussed injune in doha directly impact womens life and womens rights. So why do We include. . Why do We think womens rights is a segregated issue with the rest of society in afghanistan . Surely the point was that the taliban made it clear if womens rights was going to be top of the agenda and, indeed, if women Were going to be sitting opposite them in negotiation, then they would not attend. And the world listened to them, and the world listened to them, because there is a concession after concession in the last three years to the taliban flexibility of their flexibility, which i believe has emboldened taliban because now the taliban use womens rights as a Bargaining Chip with the International Community. The moment they want to get more attention, they suppress. They bring another law, another edict to suppress womens rights. I think its time for the International Community to step back a little bit and see what Went wrong. As i said before, how can they fix that moral defeat that they have actually committed in afghanistan . But how can the International Community, in good conscience, step back when they know that more than 20 Million people in your country are in desperate need of direct humanitarian assistance . How can they ignore this one of the worst humanitarian situations in the entire world . Humanitarian crisis is just one of the crises out of 100 crises that the people of afghanistan suffer. Im not saying humanitarian crisis should be politicised, although i know personally humanitarian aid is actually benefiting the taliban. This is based on our conversation on daily basis with women, with men. We know that humanitarian aid emboldens taliban. Taliban have a good division of labour. They want International Community to feed the people through the humanitarian aid, and they spend all the money that they create through the revenue, through our natural resources, through our mines, and investing on the security only, investing. But the fact is you are in exile. Youre speaking to me in london. There are millions of Women Inside Afghanistan who are right now, today, struggling to put bread on the table to feed their children. And thats why. And your message to the International Community is that they should think again about providing even the most basic humanitarian assistance. Im not saying that. Im saying humanitarian aid should not be politicised and become a means of leverage for taliban to influence International Communitys decisions. For the last three years, every Week, 40 Million go to the central bank, which eventually will go to humanitarian aid. This has emboldened taliban. What im saying is that there should be a Culture Of. Cultu re of accountability. This Culture Of impunity must end, because, so far, all the engagement has been one sided. And its like a one sided love. It has only empoWered taliban and emboldened taliban. In return, the taliban has not really given anything to change the situation of women in afghanistan. So the situation of women is not only poverty. Poverty is just one Human Rights, which is the basic and fundamental Human Rights of people, needs to be respected. But what about the rights to education . What about the rights to work . What about the rights to exist as a Human Being . Can the International Community, as a global community, leverage the taliban over the humanitarian aid, the same Way Taliban are leveraging them . The un envoy to afghanistan, richard bennett, is currently barred from entering the country. But he has said that, as far as hes concerned, what he sees of the Talibans Treatment of women and girls could amount, in his words, to a crime against humanity that could be prosecuted under international law. Now, its clear that so called gender apartheid, as recognised, for example, by the Un Secretary general, isnt a specific international crime. Right. But Gender Persecution could be. So do you want to see your nation taken to the international courts on this . Not my nation, but the taliban. Definitely. There is a difference betWeen my nation, because my nation is a peaceful nation and a small minority does not represent my nation. So i think there should be more accountable mechanisms in place. I think its time, as i said before, for the International Community to step back and see what Went wrong, and how can they fix it . Gender apartheid is not even a political campaign in the case of afghanistan, and i want this to really focus on afghanistan. Its not even a political campaign. Apartheid is a systematic Segregation And Suppression of one gender, or one race, or one religious group from the rest of society. And this is whats happening in afghanistan. We dont need evidences. You talk to five afghan Women Inside Afghanistan, five women from afghanistan. You will see there is a systematic suppression of women for their gender. And, therefore, i think there should be some Rule And Order in place from international world in order to avoid this happening in the rest of the world. This happens in the uk, this happens in the us or in global south. We need to put these mechanisms in place. Weve talked a lot