Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether she has made recent representations to the Taliban to uphold international human rights standards.

FCDO officials continue to regularly raise human rights in their meetings with the Taliban including during visits by senior officials to Kabul in October 2021 and February 2022, and in other meetings with Taliban leaders. We are pressing them on key issues, including to ensure that women play a full, equal role in national life, girls of all ages can go to school, there is freedom of expression and rights of members of ethnic and religious minorities are respected.

The Foreign Secretary and other Ministers raise the importance of upholding human rights in Afghanistan in international fora. The UK Government made clear our condemnation of the Taliban's 23 March decision not to re-open girls secondary schools, including through statements from the G7+, women foreign ministers and the UN Security Council. The Foreign Secretary raised the importance of upholding human rights, including the rights of women and girls and ethnic and religious minorities, in her speech at the Afghanistan pledging conference that the UK co-hosted on 31 March.