2 years in, activists warn backsliding for women, girls continues unabated in Taliban's Afghanistan

The hardline fundamentalist group seized control in August 2021, toppling the Western-backed government just days after U.S. troops pulled out of Afghanistan following 20 years of war. The Taliban has since imposed a strict interpretation of Islamic law, despite early promises to the international community to respect some women's rights.

Millions in the country also remain in need of humanitarian assistance, with an estimated 64 per cent of households unable to meet basic needs, according to UNICEF.

A large group of girls wearing headscarves sit at desks and on the floor in a makeshift classroom.

Afghan girls attend a class in an underground school in Kabul on July 28, 2022. Ahead of the second anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Canadian groups are pushing Ottawa to better protect the gains in girls' education. (Ebrahim Noroozi/The Associated Press)

Earlier this month, BBC Persian reported that girls as young as 10 are now being banned from school in some Afghan provinces, meaning education for women would now be off the table starting as early as Grade 3, though the Taliban issued a denial.

Girls were effectively banned from attending secondary school just weeks after the Taliban took over, at first insisting the move was temporary. Female students were then suspended from Afghanistan's universities last December.

'No fear': An Afghan-Canadian documents the dismantling of women's rights under the Taliban

"It hasn't been fully applied is our understanding," Sarah Keeler, the advocacy manager for Canadian Women For Women in Afghanistan, another Canadian aid organization, said of the new ban.

However, the group has heard from sources across the country that such a ban has started in different provinces, she said, so it's "happening on a widespread scale."

More than 25 years ago, Frozan Rahmani was an inquisitive, precocious teenage girl living in Kabul. She recalls listening to the radio every day after the first Taliban takeover — waiting in vain for the announcement that her school would reopen.

It took more than five years — and the violent overthrow of that brutal, hardline Islamist regime — to realize her dream of returning to class.

Now, the Taliban are back in power in Kabul. From the safety of Canada, Rahmani has watched friends and family swept up in the unraveling of women's rights in Afghanistan — a flashback to her own personal nightmare.

Canadian government officials have met with representatives of the Taliban on at least 13 occasions in Qatar since it swept to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, documents obtained by CBC News reveal.

The documents, obtained through access to information law, show David Sproule, Canada's senior official for Afghanistan, has been — along with various Global Affairs Canada (GAC) officials and representatives of allied countries — pressing the Taliban for commitments on extending the right to an education to women, fighting terrorism and granting safe passage to Afghans who want to leave the country.

Unlike foreign affairs departments in the U.S. and Pakistan, Canada does not provide regular updates on its talks with the government in Afghanistan.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly declined an interview request for this story, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told journalists Wednesday morning that Canada has no intention of recognizing the Taliban as Afghanistan's government.

"The reality is, along with international partners, we have to continue to press on them to respect womens' rights, to make sure the girls can go to school, to help the safe passage of people who want to leave Afghanistan. There is a need to engage even though we will not be recognizing them," he said.

In a statement, GAC spokesperson Charlotte MacLeod emphasized how Sproule has been engaging the Taliban informally, with allied countries, and all would continue to press them on human-rights related issues, fighting terror and other "key priorities."