Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker.

My guest today overcame outrageous odds to become one of Afghanistan's most prominent female politicians.

Fousia Kufi was an unwanted daughter, the ninth child of a mother whose husband had six other wives.

But Fousia not only survived, she thrived.

She got an education. After the Taliban regime was toppled in 2002, she worked for the UN,

and then she entered politics, winning a seat in parliament and becoming the country's first

female deputy speaker. As a longtime-time champion of women's rights,

she was seen as an enemy by the Taliban's hardline leadership. When they returned to power in

Kabul in 2021, Faozia Kufi fled into exile. For the past three years, she has watched the Taliban

impose ever more repressive

measures on the country's women and girls. Education for girls is prohibited beyond 12 years

of age. The latest vice and virtue laws all but erase women from the public realm. Face, body,

and voice must be concealed. Never must a woman sing.

Even at home, never must she look directly at a man, not of her family. The UN Secretary General

has condemned what he calls systemic gender apartheid, but still it continues, and still

representatives of the international community engage in a

dialogue with the Taliban, in large part because of a need to deliver humanitarian aid to a population in desperate need.

What is the best way for the international community to help the Afghan people?

Fausia Kufi joins me now. Welcome to Hard Talk.

Thank you for having me. It's a great pleasure to have you in the Hard Talk 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.

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