The world told Afghan women it had their backs. It doesn’t

Gender progress: Members of the Afghani all-girls robotics team make adjustments to the team robot in at the 2017 FIRST Global Challenge competitions in Washington. Will girls in Afghanistan be able to take up science, or even go to school, in the future? / AFP PHOTO/ PAUL J. RICHARDS

DO senior officials from the United States, China and Russia really plan to keep talking to the Taliban as if its fighters are not murdering civilians – including female activists – across Afghanistan, attacking schoolgirls and telling women they cannot leave the house without a man to accompany them?

Plenty of governments seem happy to break bread with Taliban negotiators since the United States under Donald Trump’s administration made a deal with them and President Joe Biden decided to honour it. In December 2001, the United States under George W. Bush pledged funds to support the women and children of Afghanistan. His wife Laura said, “The fight against terrorism is also the fight for the rights and dignity of women”. Any such promises are now hollow, exposed as disposable symbolism.